BUDAPEST, Oct 17, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban was due to speak to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday to discuss a planned US-Russian summit in Budapest.

US President Donald Trump, in his latest abrupt pivot on Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, announced he expected to meet Putin in Budapest within two weeks in a fresh bid to reach a peace deal.

Orban is Trump's and Putin's closest ally in the European Union and a staunch critic of Western support for Kyiv.

"I will be speaking with President Putin this morning, before noon," Orban told state radio on Friday.

The nationalist leader said Budapest is the "essentially only place in Europe today where such a meeting can be held" because what he described as Hungary's "consistent" stance for peace.

The choice of Budapest also sidesteps an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for Putin for alleged war crimes.

Hungary has announced its withdrawal from the ICC but is theoretically still a member until June 2026.

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Facebook that he had spoken to US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov late Thursday.

Orban, in power since 2010, argued that during his long term in office, the central European nation of 9.5 million has proven to be a "loyal partner", which "always stood" by its friends.

Orban's hosting of a Trump-Putin summit is raising fears in the EU as he regularly breaks the bloc's unity by refusing to send arms to Ukraine, frustrating Kyiv's bid for EU membership and stymying tougher sanctions on Russia.

Last July, Orban infuriated fellow EU leaders by travelling to Kyiv, Moscow, Beijing, and meeting Trump, then a presidential candidate, on a self-styled "peace mission", just days after Hungary took up the bloc's rotating presidency.