Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda has criticised Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán for ‘flirting’ with Russia’s Vladimir Putin just before the two men were about to sit at the same summit table.
Speaking at an EU summit on Thursday, Nausėda said: “it’s really strange to see that we start to flirt with a regime which is committing … very cruel atrocities on the territory of Ukraine,” as it sends a wrong message to international society and Ukraine, who is fighting for their freedom.
Orbán has been criticised by others in the EU for shaking hands with Putin at a summit in China last week and doubling down on his continued close ties with Russia amid its invasion of Ukraine. While Budapest has signed up to the EU’s 11 rounds of sanctions on Moscow, Orbán has continually held up talks and called on the bloc to stop supplying arms to Kyiv. Lithuania has been one of Ukraine’s staunchest supporters. Balázs Orbán, the prime minister’s political director, said the long-serving Hungarian leader would propose that EU leaders „hold a strategic debate” on a „new strategy” on Ukraine at their next meeting in December.
Nausėda, Orbán and Putin are all married.
