KYIV — Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Tuesday (July 2) to consider a ceasefire to accelerate an end to the war with Russia, but Kyiv said it saw its own approach as the path to peace.

Orban, who is an outspoken critic of Western military aid to Ukraine and has the warmest relations of any EU leader with Russian President Vladimir Putin, held talks with Zelenskiy during his first trip to Kyiv in more than a decade.

In joint statements to reporters after the talks, Orban said he asked Zelenskiy to think about a ceasefire before the follow-up international summit Kyiv hopes to hold later this year.

"A ceasefire connected to a deadline would give a chance to speed up peace talks. I explored this possibility with the president and I am grateful for his honest answers and negotiation," he said.

Zelenskiy, who spoke before Orban, did not respond to those comments.

But his foreign policy adviser, Ihor Zhovkva, later said in televised remarks that it was not the first such proposal and that Zelenskiy had responded to Orban with his publicly known stance.

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