Western countries' refusal to engage in dialogue with Russia is a mistake. This opinion was expressed by Balazs Orban, adviser to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, in an interview with the publication Express on Saturday, February 10th.
“We need to talk to the Russians and start negotiations. Western heads of state and government reject this. They don't want to talk to Moscow. From our point of view, this is a mistake,” he said.
According to the politician, the West needs to sit down at the negotiating table with Russia in order to restore trust and come to a peaceful resolution to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. According to him, a long-term diplomatic mission is needed, which should lead to an agreement between Russia, Europe and the United States. Orban stressed that in the current situation this should be considered the only way out.
“Europe is clearly divided. Many Eastern European countries view the conflict as an opportunity to fight back, defeat and destroy Russia for a long time. This is not our goal. Other European countries also do not want continued confrontation with Russia,” the adviser said.
In his opinion, the West is divided, countries pursue different goals, and this weakens them, making them unable to cope with the conflict.
On the same day, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the Kremlin has not yet recorded the desire or political will of the United States to negotiate with Russia. He also noted that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s interview with American journalist Tucker Carlson was not intended to convey the Russian point of view to the US authorities.
A day earlier, on February 9, former leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) and former member of the European Parliament (from 1999 to 2020) Nigel Farage said that the West should be more open to the idea of negotiations with the Russian leadership. He emphasized that the West's reluctance to think about peace leaves him shocked.
At the same time, Russian President Vladimir Putin, in an interview with Carlson, expressed confidence that Russia and Ukraine would sooner or later come to an agreement, and relations between the peoples would be restored. The Russian leader noted that the West thinks that hostilities will forever “tear apart” one part of the Russian people from another. However, this is a mistake – the reunion will happen.
At the same time, Putin said that Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky personally signed a document banning any negotiations with Russia, which showed his unwillingness to engage in dialogue to resolve the conflict. Russia wants to achieve a resolution of the situation in Ukraine through peaceful negotiations. He recalled that the dialogue between Moscow and Kyiv existed and even had good results.
Earlier, on February 2, the former Ukrainian ambassador to Germany and the current Ukrainian ambassador to Brazil, Andriy Melnyk, invited German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to meet with Putin and hold talks with him on Ukraine.
The last round of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine took place in Istanbul on March 29, 2022. They lasted about three hours. Later, Kyiv officially abandoned contacts with Moscow. On October 4 of the same year, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky enacted the decision of the country's National Security and Defense Council on the impossibility of holding negotiations with Putin.
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