Orban meets with Trump after the NATO summit

The nationalist Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orbán, met in Florida with the former US President, Donald Trump, after the conclusion of the NATO summit in Washington.

The meeting with Trump is likely to further unsettle Budapest's allies, as Orban angered his European counterparts after meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin last week.

Orban, the right-wing politician whose country this month took over the presidency of the European Union, has been a vocal supporter of Trump and met with the Republican presidential candidate in March.

"We discussed ways to achieve peace," Orban said through a post on social networks, where he also published a photo of the meeting with Trump. "The good news of the day: he will solve this issue."

Trump responded to Orban's post by writing on his social network, Truth Social: “Thank you, Viktor. There must be peace and soon. Many people have died in a war that should never have started."

Orban drew criticism from the EU after he went to Moscow to meet Putin. The Hungarian leader described his visit as a "mission for peace" regarding the war in Ukraine.

His visit to Russia came after a visit he made to Kiev, where he met with the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky.

The 27-member European bloc has condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine and imposed unprecedented sanctions on Moscow.

The Hungarian leader seemed isolated during the NATO summit in Washington and did not speak much to the media.

"Viktor Orban does not have a mandate from the alliance, nor from the EU, to develop any form of negotiations", said the president of Finland, Alexander Stubb, during the NATO summit.

"He can do it personally. But I do not agree with such a thing at all. I simply don't see any reason."

Orban, like Trump, expressed skepticism about the role that NATO countries were playing in supporting Ukraine and refused to send weapons to Kiev, saying that doing so would escalate the conflict./ REL