“I’ll say it out loud, I don’t think there’s any point in having conversations with authoritarian regimes that are violating international law,” Stubb said. “He can do it on his own behalf. But I fundamentally disagree about doing that. I simply do not see the purpose.”
Orbán has sought close ties to Trump and other conservative Republicans and expressed his belief that a new Trump presidency was the “only serious chance” for an end to the war in Ukraine.
Trump has repeatedly said he could settle the war “in 24 hours” if he’s elected president again by meeting with both Putin and Zelenskyy – a claim Russia’s United Nations ambassador has disputed.
In April 2023, when charges were filed in the first of Trump’s four criminal cases, Orbán posted a message of support for the former president urging him to “keep on fighting.” Trump in early 2022 said he was giving his “complete support and endorsement” to Orbán’s reelection campaign that year.
Some observers have raised concerns that Orban’s pursuit of a separate foreign policy on Russia and China from that of his EU and NATO partners threatens to undermine those groups’ unity.
European governments, meanwhile, have engaged in deep consultations on what they could do to ensure that NATO, Western support for Ukraine and the security of individual NATO countries will endure should Trump – one of the military alliance’s most prominent critics – win back the presidency in November and temper US contributions.
