Representative Mike Waltzthe Florida Republican who is Donald Trump’s choice for his national security advisorsaid on Sunday that the president-elect had good relations with the Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbanwhich he says also maintains “regular engagement” with Russia over its war with Ukraine.
“Orbán has regular relations with the Russians and he clearly has a good relationship with President Trump,” Waltz said on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.” “I hope that the whole world will want to see some sort of cessation of the massacre that is taking place in eastern Ukraine.”
Orbán, an authoritarian leader with ties to Russia, met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago last week, along with Waltz and Elon Musk. Days after the meeting, Orbán announced that he had spoken with Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying that “we are taking all possible diplomatic steps to advocate for a ceasefire” and peace talks. peace. He then appeared to propose a Christmas ceasefire and prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine.
Waltz would not say whether Orbán’s message to Putin arose from the meeting with Trump. But he noted that “we’re going to keep talking” and that “President Trump has made it clear that he wants this war to end.”
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“We have to stop the fighting,” Waltz said. “If this is some sort of ceasefire as a first step, again, we will look carefully at what that means.”
Trump has repeatedly promised that he would end the war between Russia and Ukraine upon his return to the White House, while asserting that Putin would never have invaded the country if he had been president. Waltz said that since Trump won the election, the framework for talking with world leaders around the Russia-Ukraine war has shifted to discussing how the conflict will end.
“How can we end this conflict? How can we do it in a way that restores stability, stops the carnage and hopefully makes it a permanent end, not just a pause?” Waltz said. “These are all things we’re thinking about.”
The meeting with Orbán took place after Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on December 7 in Paris, after which Trump called for an immediate ceasefire and for negotiations between Russia and Ukraine to begin.
Zelensky said following the president’s statement that the war “cannot end just with a piece of paper and a few signatures.” And while he said he had a “good meeting” with Trump, he warned that a ceasefire “without guarantees can be reestablished at any time.”
The Biden administration announced last week that it would send another batch of weapons to Ukraine, worth $500 million, according to Reuters. Ambassador of Ukraine to the United States Oksana Markarovaalso appearing Sunday on “Face the Nation,” said his country’s ability to fight Russian forces is “always a matter of artillery, weapons and air defense, the more important, and the more we can have , the faster we can- the more effectively we can defend.”
But Markarova stressed that “we are not asking for more troops. Ukrainians are still capable of defending their own country. We are asking for military support.”
