US President Donald Trump called Russian President Vladimir Putin during his Monday meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and other European leaders, and after that meeting he also called Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to discuss why Budapest is blocking Ukraine's accession talks with the EU. The report was reported by Bloomberg, according to the 24.hu server, TASR's correspondent in Budapest reports.

According to Bloomberg sources, European leaders at one point during a meeting at the White House asked Trump to use his influence over Orbán to pressure him to stop blocking Ukraine's entry into the EU.

During the phone call with Trump, Orbán expressed interest in hosting a meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian presidents in Hungary. After Monday's talks, the US president announced that he would organize a summit at the leadership level between Russia and Ukraine, followed by talks in which he would also participate.

Orbán's Facebook post on Tuesday indicated that he had listened to European leaders' demands regarding Ukraine's EU accession process but that he had no intention of backing down. He wrote that Ukraine's EU membership provides no security guarantees and that tying the country's membership to security guarantees is unnecessary and dangerous.

The British newspaper The Guardian reported on Tuesday that the meeting between Putin and Zelensky could take place in Hungary, according to an unnamed senior US government official.