Ukraine has praised Polish President Karol Nawrocki for making a U-turn on plans to meet Viktor Orbán following the Hungarian prime minister’s visit to Russia last week.
Orbán, a rare Moscow sympathizer among EU leaders, traveled to Moscow on Friday for surprise talks with President Vladimir Putin, who has been largely ostracized by Western countries since the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Poland’s conservative president, elected earlier this year, was due to meet Orbán during an official visit to Hungary this week—but he will no longer do so, Nawrocki’s top adviser said.
“This is indeed a good decision,” Andrii Sybiha, Ukraine’s foreign minister, wrote in Polish and English on X.
“It shows Poland’s principled stance and strong sense of solidarity, reaffirming its commitment to European unity and security at a crucial moment. Thank you, Poland.”
Presidential summit
Nawrocki is set to be in Hungary this week for a presidential-level meeting of the Visegrad Group, a regional cooperation forum comprised of Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
As head of state, Nawrocki will encounter his Hungarian counterpart, President Tamás Sulyok, at the summit on Wednesday—not Orbán, who is prime minister. But the veteran PM was initially scheduled to meet Nawrocki in Budapest the next day.
In light of Orbán’s meeting with Putin, Nawrocki’s foreign policy adviser Marcin Prydacz said the president would “limit the program of his visit to Hungary exclusively to the summit of Visegrad Group presidents.”
As euroskeptic social conservatives, Orbán and Nawrocki have much in common, but there are key differences in their attitudes to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
Nawrocki has a bumpy relationship with Ukraine, and has clashed with Kyiv over historical issues, while also moving to limit welfare benefits for Ukrainians in Poland. However, he is also a harsh critic of Putin and Russia.
Orbán and his foreign minister Péter Szijjártó have engaged in numerous rancorous public spats with the Ukraine leadership, often over energy policy, and have regularly opposed EU support for Ukraine and sanctions on Russia—all while maintaining a cordial relationship with Putin.
What did Hungary get from Putin?
Although held in the shadow of the U.S. peace plan to end the war in Ukraine, Hungarian officials said energy supplies was the main topic of discussion during Friday’s meeting in Moscow.
Szijjártó said the summit had “achieved what we came for,” adding that Hungary’s energy security was guaranteed. Hungary and neighboring Slovakia are the only EU countries that still import Russian oil.
The foreign minister said Russia had promised Hungary continued supplies through the Druzhba oil pipeline and the TurkStream gas pipeline.
The former, a vast network that links Russia with central Europe, has become a key point of contention between Hungary and Ukraine, with Budapest accusing Kyiv of violating its sovereignty by targeting the pipeline. It has even has banned a Ukrainian military commander from entering Hungary.
Earlier this month, the U.S. gave Hungary an exemption from sanctions designed to limit the use of Russian oil and gas, after Orbán made his case in a friendly meeting with President Donald Trump in Washington.