Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban stated that Ukraine has lost the war against Russia.

“(Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky) has lost this war,” Orban said in an interview published today by the news website mandiner.hu, ahead of a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss the conflict.

“We are talking as if this was an open-ended war situation, the Hungarian leader said, adding that this assessment is wrong. “The Ukrainians have lost this war, Russia has won the war.”

Orban, who has repeatedly vetoed EU sanctions against Russia over the war in Ukraine, argued that Kiev will not capitulate as long as it is supplied with weapons and funds by Western partners.

“Otherwise this war would have been over long ago, he said.

Yesterday, Tuesday, Budapest refused to endorse a joint statement by the other 26 European Union members that welcomed Trump’s efforts to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The signatories called in their statement for Ukraine’s territorial integrity to be safeguarded, saying “international borders should not be changed by force.”

Orban, justifying his government’s refusal to back the statement, argued that it was an attempt to “impose conditions on negotiations to which EU leaders have not even been invited.”

Trump’s bilateral meeting with Putin, due to take place on Friday in Anchorage, Alaska, has raised fears in Kiev and the rest of Europe that the two leaders may strike a deal that would force Ukraine to make territorial concessions – something Zelensky has categorically ruled out.

Orban, in a Facebook post, wrote that it is “quite sad that the EU has been pushed to the sidelines.” “The only thing worse would be to give instructions from the margin,” he added.