Pushing Quick End to Ukraine War, Orban Plays Trump’s Messenger to E.U.

After meeting with Donald J. Trump at his Mar-a-Lago home on Thursday, Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary wrote to a top E.U. official to say that Mr. Trump had told him he was planning a swift push for a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.

Mr. Trump’s view, the letter explained, was that the war had to end, and that he had specific plans to broker this outcome quickly, even before being inaugurated, if he were elected.

While it was not possible to independently verify Mr. Orban’s account, the positions laid out in the letter, obtained by The New York Times, largely track with Mr. Trump’s long-held views on Ukraine. It did not offer details about how Mr. Trump would end the intractable war, now in its third year, other than to indicate that he would reduce American financial support for Ukraine.

Mr. Orban is closely aligned with Mr. Trump and is the fiercest critic-from-within of the European Union’s staunch backing of Ukraine.

Mr. Orban was in Washington to attend the NATO summit and took time out to see Mr. Trump in Florida. The meeting capped a frantic two weeks of self-appointed diplomacy by Mr. Orban after his country took on the six-month rotating presidency of the European Union on July 1.

Mr. Orban has used the largely secretarial role to bounce around the world. He visited President Vladimir V. Putin in Moscow; President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv, Ukraine; and the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, in Beijing. He then met with Mr. Trump, who during his campaign has sat down with a series of foreign officials aligned with his views.