Representative Mike Waltzthe Florida Republican who is Donald Trump’s choice national security advisersaid Sunday that the president-elect has a good relationship with the Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbánwho said he also has “regular engagements” with Russia amid its war with Ukraine.
“Orbán has regular engagement with the Russians and clearly has a good relationship with President Trump,” Waltz said on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.” “I hope the whole world would like to see some kind of cessation of the slaughter that is going on 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 who had spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying “we are taking all possible diplomatic steps to argue for a ceasefire” and peace talks. Later it appeared to float a Christmas ceasefire and a prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine.
Waltz did not say whether Orbán’s message to Putin came out of the meeting with Trump. But he noted that “we will continue to talk” and that “President Trump has made it clear that he wants this war to stop.”
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“We have to stop the fight,” Waltz said. “If this is some kind of ceasefire as a first step, again, we’ll look at what that means.”
Trump has repeatedly vowed to end the war between Russia and Ukraine immediately after returning to the White House, while asserting that Putin would never have invaded the country if he were president. Waltz said that since Trump won the election, the framework for discussion with world leaders around the war between Russia and Ukraine has shifted to talk about how to end the conflict.
“How do we end this conflict? How do we do it in a way that restores stability, stops the carnage, and hopefully makes this a permanent end, not just a pause?” Waltz said. “These are all things we’re thinking about.”
The meeting with Orbán came after Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on December 7 in Paris, after which Trump called for an immediate ceasefire and that negotiations between Russia and Ukraine begin.
Zelenskyy said after the president’s statement that the war “cannot end simply 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 reignited at any time.”
The Biden administration announced last week that it would send another weapons package to Ukraine, valued at $500 million. according to Reuters. Ambassador of Ukraine to the USA Oksana Markarovawho also appeared on “Face the Nation” on Sunday, said his country’s ability to fight Russian forces “is still a matter of artillery and weapons and air defense, the most important thing, and the more we can have, the faster we can … the more efficiently we can defend.”
But Markarova noted that “we are not asking for other troops. Ukrainians are still capable of defending our own country. We are asking for military support.”