Hungary’s Orban predicts Trump will bring Russia back into western fold after end of Ukraine war

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Alice Weidel, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party's candidate for chancellor, not pictured, hold a press conference following their meeting in the government headquarters in Budapest, Hungary, Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2025. (Szilard Koszticsak/MTI via AP)

BUDAPEST, Hungary — U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration will reconnect Russia with the economies and energy networks of Western countries if the war in Ukraine, now nearly three years old, comes to an end, Hungary’s nationalist prime minister said on Friday.

In comments on state radio, Viktor Orbán said Trump had initiated a comprehensive shift in approach among Western nations to numerous issues, including Russia’s war, and Trump’s recent efforts to negotiate an end to the conflict would result in Moscow being drawn back into the Western fold.

“If the American president makes peace, if an agreement is made, I think Russia will be reintegrated into the world economy, reintegrated into the European security system, and even European energy,” said Orbán, who is close to Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. “This will give the Hungarian economy a huge boost. It’s a big opportunity. We gain a lot in peace.”

A phone call between Trump and Putin on Wednesday, during which they agreed to begin negotiations on ending the war, abruptly ended a three-year, U.S.-led effort to isolate the Russian leader over Ukraine and raised concerns in Kyiv and other European capitals that a negotiated settlement could take place without their direct participation.

But Orbán, who has long been critical of Western efforts to support Ukraine’s defense and threatened to veto European Union sanctions against Moscow, praised Trump for his discussions with Putin, saying the U.S. president “wants peace.”

“The United States has initiated a change that puts the whole Western world’s system of arguments, value system, and way of thinking on a new track,” he said. “This process is progressing much faster than many people thought. We call this the Trump tornado.”

Hungary, unlike the majority of European countries, has continued to rely heavily on Russian oil and gas even after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, and has been a staunch critic of EU sanctions against Russia’s energy sector.

On Friday, he predicted the EU would “fall apart” if energy prices across the bloc were not brought down.

“I personally became convinced in 2010, 2011 that the European Union was done for,” he said. “If the Germans and the French do not figure something out and put the European Union on a new trajectory, then its days are numbered. There is no need to leave it, it will fall apart by itself if it goes on like this.”

Justin Spike, The Associated Press