The Kremlin said on Thursday that Russian President Vladimir Putin had fully supported a prisoner of war exchange between Moscow and Kyiv proposed by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, but that Ukraine appeared to have turned down the idea.

Orban made the proposals during a call with Putin, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

“Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, during yesterday’s telephone conversation with President Putin, made a proposal on the eve of Christmas to carry out a major prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine, as well as to announce a Christmas ceasefire,” Peskov said.

The same day, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) sent a proposal on the prisoner exchange to the Hungarian embassy, Peskov said. Judging by Ukraine’s public reaction, Peskov said that Kyiv had “rejected all of Orban’s proposals”.

“We assume that consultations on the establishment of peace will continue. The Russian side fully supports Orban’s efforts aimed at finding a peaceful settlement and resolving humanitarian issues related to the prisoner exchange.

“Russia has never refused peace talks and has repeatedly stated its readiness to resume them on the basis of the Istanbul Agreements of 2022,” Peskov said.

Orban’s chief of staff had previously said that Orban had proposed the Christmas ceasefire and the prisoner of war swap to Putin in a phone call on Wednesday,

“One (the ceasefire proposal) was regarded as worthy of consideration … in the other issue, in the POW swap, (Putin) was supportive,” Gergely Gulyas said.

He said Hungary wanted a ceasefire to last forever, “but now this was about the Christmas days”.

(Reuters)