Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Wednesday that his main foreign policy goal was maintaining good ties with Russia and Germany, adding that the United States was an important partner but not the central focus of foreign policy.
Civilians were killed on both sides in heavy fighting in eastern Ukraine on Friday, while an attempt to reopen peace talks in neighboring Belarus was aborted before it began.
Nine Ukrainian servicemen have been killed in fighting Russian-backed separatists in the past 24 hours, the Kiev military said on Tuesday, as rebels fought to encircle a key town straddling transport routes between their two strongholds.
A top NATO official said on Friday it was the wrong time to talk about mending relations with Russia, but EU chief Jean-Claude Juncker sounded more conciliatory, saying the bloc must begin to engage with Moscow again in areas of common interest.
