BUDAPEST (Reuters) – The Hungarian government’s call for a ceasefire in neighbouring Ukraine is “cynical” given large swathes of the country are occupied by invading Russian forces, the U.S. Ambassador to Budapest David Pressman said on Wednesday.
The U.S. envoy did not mention Prime Minister Viktor Orban by name, but Hungary’s leader has repeatedly called for a ceasefire and peace talks – a move critics have said would amount to surrendering chunks of Ukraine’s territory to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“When we hear politicians advocate for appeasement masquerading as peace, let’s be very clear: one man can make peace today. If Putin stops fighting, the war ends. If Ukraine stops fighting, Ukraine ends,” Pressman told a panel discussion in Budapest, according to a transcript of his remarks released by the U.S. embassy.
A Hungarian government spokesman did not immediately respond to requests for comment
“It is cynical to call for a ceasefire when it is not your country that is almost 20% occupied by a foreign invading army,” he said.
Pressman’s remarks exposed a widening rift between the NATO allies. Orban, re-elected in 2022 for a fourth-consecutive term, has said being a NATO member was “vital” for Hungary, but his government would not send arms to Ukraine or sever economic relations with Moscow.
The U.S. envoy said that Hungary’s blocking of high-level meetings of the NATO-Ukraine Commission over a dispute with Ukraine about the treatment of ethnic Hungarians there was “untenable”.
“We are troubled by Hungarian officials’ instrumentalisation of the NATO Alliance to address these bilateral concerns,” he said.
(Reporting by Gergely Szakacs and Krisztina Than; Editing by Sharon Singleton)