INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Hungary's Viktor Orban urged the EU Saturday to open direct talks with Moscow to end the Ukraine war and vowed to oppose a bloc-wide accord
Ukraine," Orban wrote to Antonio Costa, who heads the Council of the EU's 27 member states.Details of the letter were first disclosed by the
Financial Times and Hungarian investigative journalist Szabolcs Panyi, and several diplomats confirmed its authenticity to AFP.An EU
official confirmed the council had "received a letter from the Hungarian delegation," adding: "We take note of it."Orban has cultivated warm
ties with Trump's administration and the nationalist Hungarian leader was an outlier in his reaction to Friday's dramatic scenes in
Washington, which culminated with Zelensky being thrown out of the White House.While the vast majority of European leaders rushed to assure
Zelensky of their support, Orban said Trump had stood "bravely for peace" when he berated the Ukrainian president for his scepticism over
Washington's outreach to Moscow.The EU has been scrambling for a unified position since Trump sidelined both Kyiv and its European backers
by launching talks directly with Russia to end the three-year war.An extraordinary EU summit in Brussels on Thursday will discuss possible
European "security guarantees" for Kyiv and seek to strike a deal on a new package of weaponry.But Orban indicated in his letter that
has become evident that there are strategic differences in our approach to Ukraine that cannot be bridged by drafting or communication," he
wrote.Instead, Orban urged Costa to secure the EU's support for a United Nations Security Council resolution passed this week with support
after joining European leaders and the NATO secretary general for weekend crisis talks in London.The behaviour of Trump's team has deeply
shaken European faith in Washington's commitment to protect its NATO allies.The forthcoming meetings will focus both on supporting Ukraine
and finding ways to ramp up the bloc's defences in the face of Russia.
