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Russian President Vladimir Putin shook hands with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in China on Tuesday — the first handshake between the Russian president and an EU leader since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
According to Russian state-run news outlet TASS, Orbán told Putin that, “Hungary has never sought to confront Russia. Rather, the opposite is true: Hungary has always pursued the goal of building and expanding the best communication.”
Putin said, “it is very important to have a chance to exchange views not only on bilateral relations, but also on the situation in the world and in Europe with one of the EU countries — with Hungary in this case,” adding, “we know that our positions do not always coincide, but an opportunity to exchange views, in my opinion, is always extremely important.”
The meeting took place at a two-day forum on Tuesday marking the 10th anniversary of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s brainchild, the Belt and Road Initiative — where Orbán and Putin discussed cooperation in natural gas and crude oil transportation as well as nuclear energy.
The Hungarian leader has cultivated a close personal relationship with Putin over the years, and was slow to condemn Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine as well as keeping a Russia-friendly stance in the conflict.
In the spring, a top Kyiv official warned that a series of deals boosting Hungary’s energy links with Russia will only prolong the war in Ukraine. “If you’ve seen the video where Russians cut the head off a Ukrainian soldier — the Hungarians are paying for the knife,” Oleg Ustenko, economic adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, told POLITICO.
