Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán could not mediate between Russia and Ukraine to end fighting between the two countries.

Orbán visited Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin last week with the stated aim of bringing about peace between their two countries, which have been locked in a brutal armed conflict since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

“Can [Orbán] be a mediator? There is no mediation between Russia and Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said during a joint press conference with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk in Warsaw. He added that even if Putin meets with the leader of another state, it doesn’t mean he wants to end the war in Ukraine.

“You need to have an economy that influences Russia, and Putin depends on it. Or you have a very powerful army that Putin fears, which is stronger than the Russian one,” Zelenskyy said.

“Are there many such countries in the world? Not many. I think the USA is such a country, China and the EU. Not just one country, but the entire European Union. This can truly be a mediating mission,” Zelenskyy added

Following his meetings with Putin and Zelenskyy, Orbán met on Monday with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, a trip he described as the third leg of a “peace mission.”

Zelenskyy said Orbán’s parley with Putin, to which many EU leaders reacted with fury, hadn’t been coordinated with Kyiv.

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