Budapest is the wrong place for Trump to meet Putin on Ukraine

Europe and the civilized world should strongly oppose any visit by Vladimir Putin to meet Donald Trump in Budapest. Indeed, a meeting of Trump to meet Putin in Budapest would be an unequivocal rejection of the international rule of law, the democratic world and, most painfully, an insult to Ukraine. After all, Budapest is where Russia, Ukraine, the United States and the United Kingdom signed the Budapest Memorandum in 1994, pledging to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in exchange for Kiev giving up its nuclear arsenal. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014 and again in 2022 broke that promise. Holding a so-called “peace summit” in the same city today — with the same attacker — would symbolically repeat that betrayal. How can Russia be expected to honor a new peace agreement when it has already violated the first one signed right there?

Legally Binding International Law

But symbolism is only part of the story. The other part is law — actual, legally binding, international law. According to the International Criminal Court (ICC) news bulletinVladimir Putin is an accused war criminal, wanted by the ICC “for the illegal transfer of population from the occupied territories of Ukraine to the Russian Federation, at the expense of the children of Ukraine.” Specifically, a recent study by the Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Laboratory reports that Putin is involved in the abduction of 35,000 children from Ukraine. Given these facts, the bottom line is that every member of the European Union, including Hungary, which is a party to the ICC’s founding treaty, the Rome Statute, is therefore legally bound to facilitate Putin’s arrest for this war crime the moment he sets foot on Hungarian soil.

More specifically, under the Rome Statute, ICC member states have clear and mandatory obligations: to cooperate with investigations, to facilitate arrests and transfers, and to allow access to evidence. These tasks are not optional. Signing the Treaty of Rome does not mean that a country can apply it selectively when it is convenient or politically expedient. Obligations are binding. To ignore them is to undermine not only the ICC but the entire concept of the rules-based international order that has guided global stability for decades.

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s recent notice to withdraw from the ICC is no excuse to ignore the rules as, according to a human rights press release, withdrawal it enters into force before June 2026. Until then, Hungary remains fully bound by the provisions of the Rome Statute. Interpol officers should be able to enter Hungary and act under the ICC warrant. If Budapest allows Putin to walk into an EU capital unchallenged, it will undermine the entire system of international justice set up to prevent precisely this kind of impunity.

Does the Law still matter?

Allowing Putin to fly through European airspace or walk into a summit in Budapest would not just make a mockery of the ICC – it would make a mockery of the rule of law and democracy. Euronews reports that the EU has poured more than $160 billion into defending Ukraine and its democratic order—much more, by the way, than the United States spentt from 2022. But why invest so much in the survival of Ukraine and by extension the future of Europe, only to throw it away by rolling out the red carpet for the man who started the war in Ukraine and ignores these principles? It is not only about the Ukrainian territory. It’s about whether the law still matters to us all—whether circumstances, rules, and common decency can still demand bare authority.

What about the Alaska Summit?

Some might argue that the United States once hosted Putin on its soil, but that comparison is false. The United States is not a signatory to the ICC and is therefore not bound by its obligations. Hungary and all its immediate European neighbors are. This distinction is crucial. The democratic world cannot stand up for the rule of law one moment and then ignore it the next. Either we obey the law or we don’t. Trump may inhabit a world where he believes he can do whatever he wants, regardless of the law. However, the civilized world should not follow him down this path.

A clear message about authoritarianism

This is also an opportunity for all of us to send a clear message to leaders like Viktor Orbán and others who flirt with authoritarianism, including many Trump supporters in the United States, that the rule of law is not a menu from which one can pick and choose. Hungary’s flirtation with Putinism and disregard for democratic norms are not just domestic quirks. they are part of a global pattern of democratic backsliding that must be confronted, not indulged. Upholding the ICC’s warrant against Putin isn’t just about Ukraine — it’s about setting a precedent of accountability that leaders like Orbán must face as a lesson in what it means to belong in the free world. And it could either lead to Orbán’s exit as Hungary’s leader, or Hungary’s exit from the EU in the future.

This moment calls for moral clarity. Europe must confirm that no war criminal indicted by the ICC should be allowed to travel freely, let alone be welcomed in an EU capital. Anything less would betray the victims of Russia’s aggression, the sacrifices of Ukraine’s defenders and the basic principles that distinguish democracy from tyranny.

What is the lesson?

Vladimir Putin didn’t need a permit to travel to Alaska to meet Trump — but he did to visit Hungary. He should never be granted the privilege of meeting there. Moreover, despite Trump’s efforts to legitimize Putin by hosting him on American soil, agreeing to this meeting in Budapest, and attempting to allow Putin to return to the G-7 — all of these initiatives should be condemned as undermining democracy and the rule of law. The past century has taught us the cost of indulging autocrats. this will judge whether we have remembered the lesson.