The Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, has met Vladimir Putin in Moscow on a visit that's been criticized by other European leaders. Mr. Orbán is the European Union's only head of national government to maintain warm ties with Russia since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Speaking alongside Mr. Putin, he said Hungary viewed its 6th-month presidency of the EU as a peace mission for Ukraine, and that his visit was a step to restoring dialog. But EU foreign policy chief, has said Mr. Orbán, has no mandate to represent the block. Well, for more, here's our Russia editor, Steve Rosenberg, with the latest.

This was quite extraordinary. Just a few days after his country had assumed the rotating presidency of the EU, Hungary's Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, flew to Moscow without his EU hat on for surprise talks with President Putin about the war in Ukraine, sparking consternation in the European Union. So the President of the European Commission basically called this a peacement. And the EU's foreign policy chief said that Mr. Orbán had no mandate from the European Council to come to Moscow. Well, Viktor Orbán didn't seem to care. He said that this was the second part of a peace mission. He'd been in Kyiv earlier in the week for talks with President Zelenskyy.

We need to take many steps to move towards ending the war.

But the first important step we've taken today, restoring dialog.

We are grateful to the Prime Minister for coming to Moscow.

We see this as an attempt to restore dialog. And move it on.

Well, once the Putin-Orban talks were over, we managed to get some reaction from the Hungarian foreign minister. Very strong words from Brussels, appeasement, you're accused of.

Okay, once again, we are a sovereign country, and without dialog, without discussion, without channels of communication to be kept open, there will be no solution. Last two and a half years have made this very clear.

I think that Moscow often looks for opportunities to drive wedges between its drive wedges between its opponents, to sow division in the West, disunity, and the Russians will be well aware of the optics here. The leader of a European country flying to Moscow, holding talks with President Putin at a time when much of the West has been trying to isolate Russia to isolate Russia because of the war in Ukraine.

Russia editor Steve Rosenberg there.