Leader of Kyiv's Hungarian community explains why Orban actually called Putin

Tibor Tompa, the head of the Hungarian community in Kyiv and Kyiv region, said this on the Espreso TV channel.

‘Orban is Putin's puppet, and his call to Putin was not related to Ukraine. It had nothing to do with peace. He called Putin solely out of his own interests. The fact is that Russia has let Hungary down by promising to build a nuclear power plant in Hungary for 12 billion euros. Talks about this have been going on for more than 10 years, and the construction of the power plant has not even begun. Now Russia is blackmailing Hungary, claiming that the cost of construction will be much higher,’ he said.

According to him, Orban was counting on certain preferences and claimed that Hungary would become an energy independent country thanks to cheap electricity. This helped him gain support in the elections.

‘According to the Hungarian press, the Kremlin set a condition for Orban to promote anti-Ukrainian narratives, blaming Ukraine for all the problems and urging it to surrender on Russia's terms. In short, this is what the conversation was about. So, Orban's position has nothing to do with peacekeeping. He simply wants to force Ukraine to surrender on Russia's terms,’ he added.

• On December 11, media reported that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban had a telephone conversation with Russian leader Vladimir Putin immediately after meeting with US President-elect Donald Trump in Florida.
• President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reacted to the phone call: ‘we hope that Orban will not call Assad in Moscow’.