However, no meeting is planned with Vladimir Poutine, indicates the Kremlin.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who is going it alone in Europe by boosting gas trade with Russia, is heading to Moscow on Saturday morning for the funeral of the Soviet Union’s last leader Mikhail Gorbachev, the secretary of state told international communication.
He goes “pay tribute to the late Mikhail Gorbachev“, Accompanied by a Hungarian delegation, he said on Twitter, the day after the announcement by the Russian giant Gazprom of the continued shutdown of the Nord Stream gas pipeline, vital for Europe.
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The Kremlin ensures that no meeting is planned with Vladimir Putin. “According to our information, he will only come to say goodbye to Gorbachev. There have been no requests for interviewsKremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian news agency Ria-Novosti.
A unique link with Russia
The funeral of the last leader of the Soviet Union takes place on Saturday in Moscow. Mikhail Gorbachev died on Tuesday evening at the age of 91 following a “long and serious illness“, according to the hospital where he was treated. He made history by precipitating, in spite of himself, the disappearance of the Soviet empire in 1991, while he was trying to save it with democratic and economic reforms, thus ending the Cold War.
Budapest was liberated by the Red Army in 1945 and Hungary then came under Soviet rule. In 1956, an insurgency was crushed by block armor. Viktor Orban regularly maintains the memory of this uprising.
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His move comes as Gazprom announced on Friday the extension of the shutdown of the Nord Stream gas pipeline for maintenance. Against the current, Hungary made public Wednesday a strengthening of its exchanges with Gazprom and receives additional deliveries of gas, at a time when its European partners are faced with a sharp reduction in the quantities supplied. Since his return to power in 2010, Viktor Orban has forged ties with Russia, a collaboration maintained despite the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
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