“You are riding a horse backwards”: Viktor Orbán criticized Ukraine’s aspiration to join the EU

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wants to join the European Union, but at the same time he is sitting on a horse facing backwards.

This was said by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on his Facebook page.

Earlier, Zelenskyy demanded that an exact date for Ukraine’s accession to the European Union be included in any possible peace agreement. He fears that without this, Russia could block the integration process by using “representatives in Europe.”

“You are riding the horse backwards,” Orbán wrote on social media.

In the politician’s view, Zelenskyy is on the wrong path. The Hungarian prime minister also said that joining the EU is a process based exclusively on the achievements and merits of the candidate country.

On February 9, Bloomberg reported that the EU has several plans for admitting Ukraine into the bloc. In December 2025, media outlets wrote that Ukraine could be admitted to the EU in 2027, which would help develop trade and investment in the country and could also reduce the level of corruption.

In January, Zelenskyy said that Ukraine is technically ready to open all clusters in the EU accession talks in 2026, and that in 2027 Kyiv will be fully ready to join the EU.