Orban Reveals the Content of His Talks with Zelenskyy and Putin

Claudio Celani  June 9, 2025 EST

In a long interview with American, Dutch and Swiss journalists on the sidelines of the CPAC meeting in Budapest, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbàn said the time has come for him to make public what those conversations were. “As I met Zelenskyy in Kiev,” Orban said, “I told him: time is not on your side. You are losing the war and the longer it gets, the higher price you will pay. Zelenskyy answered: ‘No, time is on my side. The Russians are losing the war.’ Then I went to Moscow and Putin told me the same: time is on our side—with the difference that Putin was right.”

Asked by journalists whether he thought Zelenskyy said that because he was relying on the Europeans, Orban said yes. There are two options: Either he was sincere or he was not. “I think he was sincere and he was counting on the Europeans,” he said.

“Peace won’t come as a result of a Ukrainian-Russian negotiation, but as a result of the U.S.-Russia negotiation, which is not just about the war, is about everything: economy, energy, security etc.” Orban sees a return of Russia in the European scenario, because the Europeans must go back to the system that worked, namely Russian resources plus European technology. They have abandoned it without having a new system to replace the old system. That is suicidal.

Orban said he can only positively speak about China and, answering a personal question, explained how his concept of freedom has changed in the years. At the beginning, he conceived freedom as the utmost good, in terms of liberation from dictatorship, from Soviet rule etc. He thought the liberals were for freedom. Eventually, liberals turned against freedom. He now thinks that freedom is something you need to do things that are more important than your individual life.