Orban will pay his respects and will be accompanied by a delegation, the secretary of state said on Twitter.

Before the Ukraine war, Orban had one of the closest relationships with Russian President Vladimir Putin of any EU leader, and Hungary is the sole European country to have increased gas deliveries from Russia since the start of the conflict.

There are no plans for Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin when he travels to Moscow for Saturday's funeral of last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, the Kremlin said.

"As far as we know, he will only fly in to say goodbye to Gorbachev. There were no desires for meetings," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told state news agency RIA Novosti.