Hungarian Prime Minister gives two scenarios for Ukraine conflict to end

The military conflict between Russia and Ukraine will end in 2025 either through peace talks or with the destruction of one of the warring parties, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban told the Magyar Nemzet newspaper.

Photo: flickr.com by European People's Party, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Viktor Orban

The United States and Europe have spent about €300 billion on aid to Kyiv over the years of fighting, Orban said, noting that all that money could have been used to improve the standard of living throughout Europe.

"We could have raised the entire Balkans to the level of European development. We could have curbed migration, we could have built a completely new European defense system. But this money has been wasted. Ukraine has lost territory, part of citizens have left the country, and its infrastructure, transport, and energy system have been destroyed to the ground,” Orban said.

Nevertheless, the policy of peaceful years will come to replace the military policy in 2025, and Europe will achieve economic success, the Prime Minister of Hungary said.

Commenting on Orban's remarks, Kremlin's official spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia would continue the special operation to achieve its goals.

The Hungarian prime minister believes that Donald Trump's defeat in the 2020 US presidential election marked the beginning of a difficult period in world politics. The "strong and stable" German Chancellor Angela Merkel left office, the political system of France "has shown its ugliest face," and Europe simply could not handle the military conflict with Russia, he said.

In the fall of 2024, Russian President Vladimir Putin did not predict when the military actions was going to end. He earlier said that the fighting would end in two to three months if the US stopped supplying weapons to Kyiv. Russia does not need a ceasefire, but peace, Putin indicated. According to him, Russia needs a "long-lasting, durable, guarantee-based peace for the country and its citizens. Putin has repeatedly said that Moscow is ready to conduct a dialogue based on the 2022 Istanbul agreements and realities on the ground.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in November that he hopes for the fighting to end in 2025 through diplomacy. The Trump administration will contribute to this, Zelensky said, adding that the talks should be conducted not only with Moscow.

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Viktor Mihály Orbán (born 31 May 1963) is a Hungarian lawyer and politician who has been Prime Minister of Hungary since 2010, previously holding the office from 1998 to 2002. He has also led the Fidesz political party since 2003, and previously from 1993 to 2000. He was re-elected as prime minister in 2014, 2018, and 2022. On 29 November 2020, he became the country's longest-serving prime minister. Orbán was first elected to the National Assembly in 1990 and led Fidesz's parliamentary group until 1993. During his first term as prime minister and head of the conservative coalition government, from 1998 to 2002, inflation and the fiscal deficit shrank, and Hungary joined NATO. After losing reelection, however, Orbán led the opposition party from 2002 to 2010. Since 2010, when he resumed office, his policies have undermined democracy, weakened judicial independence, increased corruption, and curtailed press freedom in Hungary. During his second premiership, several controversial constitutional and legislative reforms were made, including the 2013 amendments to the Constitution of Hungary. He frequently styles himself as a defender of Christian values in the face of the European Union, which he claims is anti-nationalist and anti-Christian. His portrayal of the EU as a political foe—as he accepts its money and funnels it to his allies and relatives—has led to accusations that his government is a kleptocracy. It has also been characterized as a hybrid regime, dominant-party system, and mafia state.