Andrii Yermak, Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, has had a phone call with Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Hungary, during which they agreed to meet in January for the first time and discussed the organisation of a meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

"Of course, we will not change our peacekeeping position, but I am looking forward to our personal meeting in January, when we will have the opportunity to discuss the most pressing bilateral issues,"Szijjártó said on Facebook.

Szijjártó added that maintaining the dialogue on a  high level is important "because it gives hope that we can improve our relations". He added that Budapest is interested in cooperating with all its neighbours as efficiently as possible.

Yermak also revealed that he had had a productive phone call with Szijjártó, during which further communication between Ukraine's President Zelenskyy and Hungarian PM Orbán was discussed.

"We are working on organising the meeting of the two leaders in the near future. We have also discussed Ukraine´s progress in European integration," Yermak said on Twitter (X).

Також обговорили просування України на євроінтеграційному шляху.

— Andriy Yermak (@AndriyYermak) December 28, 2023

Ukraine's President's Office has stated that possible talks with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán may cover a wide range of bilateral relations.

As it is known, Hungary and Ukraine had almost no contact on a high level after the beginning of Russia´s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, but their cooperation grew more active within the last few weeks. Among other things, talks about arranging a meeting between Zelenskyy and Orbán are underway.

Earlier, Zelenskyy said that during a conversation with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, he asked him to name just one reason why Ukraine should not be in the EU.