“If you’re not at the negotiating table, you’re on the menu”: Hungarian Prime Minister Orban said that Russia has won the war in Ukraine

Russia has won the war in Ukraine.

This was stated by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, as quoted by Reuters.

“We are now speaking as if this is a war with an uncertain outcome, but that is not the case. The Ukrainians have lost the war. Russia has won this war,” he said.

According to the Hungarian prime minister, the only question is “when and under what circumstances the West, which supports the Ukrainians, will acknowledge that this has happened, and what the result of all this will be.”

He also stated that Europe missed the opportunity to hold negotiations with Russian leader Vladimir Putin during the administration of former U.S. President Joe Biden, and now risks having its future decided without its participation.

“If you are not at the negotiating table, you are on the menu,” said Orbán, repeating an old diplomatic idiom first applied to Ukraine by former U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

This is not Orbán’s first such statement. In early July, the Hungarian prime minister said that the European Union and Ukraine had already lost the war, and that in this bitter moment European leaders would have to admit they had pursued a flawed strategy.