Hungary calls for faster integration of Ukraine into the European Union, but at the same time wants to maintain close ties with Russia, said Balazs Orban, a top adviser to Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Bloomberg reports, noting that the politicians are not relatives.

Earlier, Prime Minister Orban called on the EU to lift all sanctions against Russia, and his officials referred to Hungary's dependence on Russian energy, explaining this by the need to maintain closer ties with Moscow than with any other EU country..

PM adviser says while Hungary is being criticized for advancing Russian interests in the EU, the government in Budapest supports Ukraine's efforts to join the EU and wants the European Commission to take action. He added that the government supports the accession to the EU and Serbia.

" Member states should put pressure on the commission to speed up the process,"

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In early December, Hungary blocked the allocation of 18 billion euros of macro-financial assistance to Ukraine in 2023. However, this problem was solved and help was still agreed.

Formerly ZN. UA wrote that the Hungarians are using the Ukrainian tragedy to get Ukraine to revise the law on education, to knock out a favorable price for Russian energy resources from the Kremlin leadership, to negotiate multibillion-dollar subventions from the EU. Read more about this in the article by Vladimir Kravchenko “Why Orban is blackmailing Ukraine and the EU”.