Worthy Christian News > World News > Trump Ready To Act “Immediately” As Peace Broker In Russia-Ukraine War (Worthy News Radio)

Trump Ready To Act “Immediately” As Peace Broker In Russia-Ukraine War (Worthy News Radio)

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News

BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – Hungary’s prime minister says if elected in November, U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump is ready to act “immediately” as a peace broker in the Russia-Ukraine war.

Viktor Orbán made the remarks in a letter to the European Union’s European Council President Charles Michel and shared with all other EU leaders, prompting an angry response from Brussels.

Michel reacted by condemning Orbán on Tuesday over his self-styled Ukraine peace mission, which included talks with Trump and the presidents of Russia and China without EU backing.

In his reply to Orbán’s letter, Michel said Hungary had no EU mandate for such talks despite taking over the EU presidency from Belgium on July 1.

“The rotating Presidency of the Council has no role in representing the Union on the international stage and received no European Council mandate to engage on behalf of the Union,” Michel told Orbán.

In an unprecedented move, the EU’s executive Commission barred EU Commissioners from attending meetings held in Hungary under the country’s EU presidency.

Some EU governments also plan to send only top civil servants, rather than government ministers, to ministerial meetings in Hungary. Separately, 63 European Parliament lawmakers have asked the EU to suspend Budapest’s voting rights in the bloc.

‘CHRISTIAN DUTY’

Yet despite the criticism, Orbán said it was his “Christian duty” to seek peace in neighboring Ukraine, which has faced a full-scale Russian invasion since February 2022. “To make peace is a Christian action,” he said.

“If we would like to approach the piece in a political way, you start to become more and more bureaucratic. [In that case, you have to think] What kind of negotiation authority do you have? What the [European] Council will say? What will the high foreign policy representation of the Council say?” Orbán explained.

“[However] this is the duty I have to do now because I remain the only Western leader who has a chance to talk at the same time with Kyiv and Moscow. All the others created a situation when they have no chance to directly communicate with the two main actors, especially with the Russians,” he said.

Orbán admitted that EU leaders aren’t happy about him using Hungary’s EU presidency to talk with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping on ending a war that killed and injured hundreds of thousands of people.

“My reaction to the comments is: ‘So guys, I understand that you are not used to that kind of behavior of the rotating president of the European Union.’

However, he recalled, “The last man who probably had done something similar was [then French President] Nicholas Sarkozy when the invasion happened in Georgia. And he went there, and Sarkozy provided political leadership. A political rotating presidency. So till then, everybody and everything was rather bureaucratic.”

However, Orbán added that “if we consider this issue [such as the war in Ukraine] from a bureaucratic eyeglass, a bureaucratic approach, nothing will happen because bureaucrats cannot generate peace. It’s impossible. Peace will not be born by itself.”

TRUMP AGREES

Orbán’s views are shared by Trump, with whom he has close ties.

The Hungarian prime minister was also one of the first European leaders to express shock over this weekend’s assassination attempt on the former U.S. president.

In his letter to the EU’s leadership, Orbán said Trump, in the event of his victory in the U.S. election in November, would not wait until his inauguration but would
“be ready to act as a peace broker immediately. He has detailed and well-founded plans for this.”

Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy, while not endorsing Orbán as peace broker has already said he is ready for a November peace conference attended by Russia.

He also warned that if Trump ends Biden’s “pro-war” policy, the EU will face increased costs.

A former Belgian prime minister, Michel, said the EU doesn’t want war.“It is quite the opposite,” Michel wrote. “Russia is the aggressor, and Ukraine is the victim exercising its legitimate right to self-defense.”