EU member Hungary has lost out on 6.7 billion dollars in exports since the bloc imposed sanctions against Russia over the conflict in Ukraine, Hungary’s top diplomat said on Thursday.
Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov said ahead of the meeting that flare-up the fight in eastern Ukraine.
Ushakov said that the fight was expected to be a focal point of talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Budapest.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto, also minister for trade, said the sanctions have proven to be unsuccessful from both a political and economic perspective.
Hungary has in the past repeatedly expressed opposition to the sanctions, imposed three years ago by the EU, U.S. and other Western powers over Russia’s role in the Ukraine crisis.
Russia has reciprocated against the West’s largely finance-oriented sanctions with a sweeping ban on many types of imports of Western-made food products.
Moscow’s counter-sanctions have burdened the agricultural industries of many eastern EU states, including Hungary.
“In recent years we have received continuous criticism from the Western world for maintaining pragmatic relations with Russia, but today these are the kind of relations that the Western world is also aspiring to,’’ Szijjarto said.
Fighting between the Ukrainian military and Russian-backed rebel forces amid a simmering conflict in eastern Ukraine has flared up this week as Ukraine assumed the month long presidency of the UN Security Council.
“Moscow hopes that Putin and Orban’s meeting would help to improve Russia’s overall ties with the EU.
“Hungary has been playing a rather positive role” in developing Russia’s ties with the EU,’’ Ushakov said in comments carried by media on Wednesday. (dpa/NAN)
ACO/SH