"He has a bad experience": Orban comments on Zelensky's rejection of ceasefire proposal

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who visited Kyiv on Tuesday, admitted in an interview at the end of his visit that the Ukrainian president was "dubious" about his proposal to first declare a ceasefire and try to start peace talks.

In an interview with the Swiss newspaper Weltwoche, Orban repeated his offer to Ukraine and said that he simply wanted to know Zelenskyy's opinion on the matter first.

"What he thinks about the possibility of first declaring a ceasefire. Even a limited one: two, three, four weeks. And to say that during this ceasefire we can accelerate negotiations on the peace process," Orban explained.

"He said that he had doubts, that he didn't like it very much," the Hungarian prime minister replied when asked how Zelenskyy reacted. – "He said: let's think about it, let's think about it. He has a bad experience with previous ceasefires: in his interpretation, they did not bring anything good to Ukraine," Orban said.

Background. As reported by the Presidential Office the day before, Zelenskyy rejected the Hungarian Prime Minister's proposal to consider a ceasefire in order to "accelerate peace talks". This was stated by Deputy Head of the Office of the President Ihor Zhovkva, speaking on the air of a national telethon. "The President of Ukraine listened to him, but in response, he outlined Ukraine's position – clear, understandable, known," Zhovkva said.