BRUSSELS - EU leaders were set to face off against Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban yesterday as he threatened to veto a massive aid package and a start to membership talks for Ukraine.

The crunch summit in Brussels - which diplomats fear could drag on longer than the two days planned - comes as fears mount over Western backing for Ukraine nearly two years into Russia’s war.

Kyiv is desperately seeking to improve the narrative after President Volodymyr Zelensky failed in Washington to win over Republican lawmakers blocking support from the United States. But Orban - Russia’s closest ally in the European Union - stands in the way of Ukraine’s hopes for 50 billion euros (US$54 billion) in financial aid and progress towards its goal of one day joining the bloc.

Critics have accused the Hungarian leader of holding Kyiv’s survival hostage in a bid to force Brussels to release billions of euros of EU funds frozen over a rule of law dispute. In what some saw as a last-minute concession the European Commission, the EU’s executive, agreed on Wednesday to unblock 10 billion euros of that cash.

But 21 billion euros still remain out of Orban’s grasp and it was far from clear that the gesture would avert a damaging dispute at the summit.

The right-wing veteran warned opening accession talks with Ukraine would be a “terrible mistake” and that he would not budge. Zelensky countered that Orban had “no reason” to block Kyiv from moving towards EU membership and said his country could not beat Russia without more Western support.

The stand-off sets the stage for hours of arm twisting in Brussels as fellow leaders will try to hash out a deal to get Orban to back down. Russia fired a fresh wave of missiles at Kyiv on Wednesday, wounding dozens of people in its most damaging attack on the capital in months.

Another strike early yesterday wounded another 11 in the southern Odesa region, emergency services said. - Nampa/AFP