Orbán Says Ukraine Has Lost War, Ahead of Trump–Putin Meeting

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has declared that Ukraine has lost its war against Russia, as he looked ahead to a planned meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has lost this war,” Orbán told far-right outlet mandiner.hu in an interview published Wednesday. “The Ukrainians have lost this war, Russia has won the war.”

The Hungarian leader, a consistent critic of EU sanctions on Russia, argued that the conflict would have ended long ago without Western military and financial aid to Kyiv. He said the perception that the war’s outcome was still undecided was “false.”

On Tuesday, Budapest refused to sign a joint statement by the other 26 EU members supporting Trump’s efforts to end the war. The declaration insisted that Ukraine’s territorial integrity be preserved, stating that “international borders must not be changed by force.”

Orbán defended his stance, saying the document tried to impose conditions on negotiations to which EU leaders had not even been invited.

The Trump–Putin meeting, scheduled for Friday in Anchorage, Alaska, has raised concerns in Kyiv and across Europe that the two leaders could strike a deal forcing Ukraine into territorial concessions—something Zelensky has categorically rejected.

In a Facebook post, Orbán lamented that the EU had already been pushed to the sidelines in the peace process, warning: “The only thing worse will be if we were giving instructions from the sidelines.”