Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban met Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday to discuss peace in Ukraine, drawing warnings from fellow European Union leaders against appeasement and an insistence that he did not speak for the EU.

Hungary assumed the six-month rotating presidency of the bloc on Monday. Five days in and Orban has visited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv and formed the "Patriots for Europe" alliance with other right-wing nationalists.

Now, he has chosen to go to Moscow on a "peace mission", days before a NATO summit that will address further military aid for Ukraine against what the Western defense alliance has called Russia's "unprovoked war of aggression".

HUNGARY LAUNCHES EU PRESIDENCY WITH TRUMP-LIKE CALL TO 'MAKE EUROPE GREAT AGAIN'

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that only unity and determination within the 27-nation EU would pave the way to a just and lasting peace in Ukraine".

"Appeasement will not stop Putin," she said on X.

Putin, who received Orban in the Kremlin, told him that he was ready to discuss the "nuances" of peace proposals to end the two-and-a-half-year-old war.

Putin said last month that Russia would end the war in Ukraine, which Moscow calls a special military operation, only if Kyiv agreed to drop its NATO ambitions and hand over the entirety of four provinces claimed by Moscow - demands Kyiv swiftly rejected as tantamount to surrender.

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An EU diplomat said that, in Orban's decision to meet Putin in Moscow, Hungary's presidency of the EU - which will run until Dec. 31 - had effectively ended before it had really begun.

"The skepticism of EU member states was unfortunately justified – it's all about promoting Budapest's interests," the diplomat said, asking for anonymity due to political sensitivities.

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda accused Orban of undermining the EU presidency. "If you truly seek peace, you don't shake hands with a bloody dictator, you put all your efforts to support Ukraine," he wrote on X.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Orban in Moscow was "not representing the EU in any form" and Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said the visit undermined EU interests.

Pavel Havlicek, research fellow at the Association for International Affairs, said Orban's visit was an abuse of a power vacuum in Brussels and a dangerous undermining of the common European position.

Orban, a critic of Western military aid to Ukraine who has the warmest relations of any EU leader with Putin, said he recognized he had no EU mandate for the trip, but that peace could not be made "from a comfortable armchair in Brussels".

"We cannot sit back and wait for the war to miraculously end," he wrote on X.

The EU presidency's role is to chair meetings of member states, seek consensus and broker agreements on legislation with the European Parliament.

At a time of transition, with a new European Commission only set to take office in November, analysts said Budapest's actions at the forefront of EU policymaking were likely to be restricted.

Ministers said Hungary wanted to make an impact with its presidency, which it launched with a striking call to "Make Europe Great Again", echoing former U.S. president Donald Trump, an Orban ally.

"We intend to leave a mark," Orban's spokesman Zoltán Kovacs said on Thursday, before reports of the Moscow trip emerged. "The prime minister is going to use the presidency in a political way."

Regan Smith will compete in her second Summer Olympics next month with a new mindset, one that will hopefully help the 22-year-old American swimmer earn her first Olympic gold medal. 

Smith’s journey to Paris saw her medal in three individual events at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials in Indianapolis last month. She broke the world record in the women’s 100-meter backstroke, reclaiming the title she previously had in 2019 when she broke the record at just 17.

After the event, Smith said it was a "long time coming." For the past several years, the Olympic medalist had seemingly struggled with the mental side of her sport, which held her back from seeing the same success she once did five years ago. 

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But something changed in Smith’s approach, and she’ll be going for gold in the women’s 100-meter and 200-meter backstroke and the 200-meter butterfly.

Speaking to Fox News Digital, Smith opened up about her mental health journey. 

"I, for a long time, I drank the Kool-Aid of the stigma around mental health. I didn't want to have a sports psychologist. I didn’t want to talk about it. I thought you were weak, or I thought I was weak. And so the feelings that I had, I tried to shove inside and ignore them, and it festered and exploded. And I had a really hard couple of years as an athlete." 

But one day, that changed.

"I kind of faced the music, looked in the mirror and was like, 'You're not weak for accepting help. Why don't you talk to someone and see where it goes?'"

And so Smith began the search for a sports psychologist who she felt was the right fit. And in October, she met Emily Klueh. 

"She has taken my swimming completely to the next level," Smith said.

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Klueh swam collegiately at Michigan and swam for the national team for 10 years. In 2023, she joined USA Swimming as manager of mental health and emotional wellness. Smith praised Klueh’s factual and logical approach to the sport, which she credits with turning around her performance in the pool.

"One thing that she always says to me, it's kind of her mantra with me, she's just like, 'Look at the facts of the situation.' And that was so eye-opening to me because, as an athlete, as a swimmer, I feel like I can look through things with a very emotional lens. I think that's where nerves come from, that's where anxiety comes from, and that's ultimately what leads us to choking, to be blunt, and to not perform at the level you're capable of performing at."

"She just did such an excellent job at dumbing everything down for me, which sounds silly, but it's a lot easier to swim fast and put up performances that you're proud of when things are simplified. And I couldn't figure out how to do that until she came into my life," she continued. "And so I'm so incredibly grateful, and I think I'm able to look at swimming with excitement now instead of anxiety. And I think excitement and anxiety kind of go hand in hand, but it can be very difficult to separate the two. I never could until I started to work with her."

Smith also spoke about another factor that improved her mental game.

Speaking to Fox News Digital on behalf of pet nutrition brand Nulo, Smith said she adopted a cat named Roo from an animal shelter in Arizona during a difficult time in her training this year. She had fallen ill just months before from the Olympic trials and was forced to stop training.

"I was so down in the dumps. I was like, ‘This is an Olympic year, and here I am sitting on the couch, exhausted when I try to go get groceries. Like, how am I supposed to go to the Olympics this summer? This is hopeless. I don't know what I'm supposed to do.’" 

That’s when her family and sports psychologist suggested that an emotional support animal might be a good solution. 

"She is the absolute sweetest thing, and she got me out of that rough patch, and she was such an incredible support system. And so when I was still kind of on the come-up recovering from my sickness, and I would come home from practice just in tears because I just wanted to be back [at] the level that I was at training-wise, she would greet me at the door."

Nulo has partnered with eight athletes, including fellow Olympians Simone Biles and Caeleb Dressel, as a part of the Fuel Incredible campaign aimed at highlighting the connection between athletes and their pets on the journey to the top.

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