“I have proposed that the discussions take place in Budapest, a safe place” for the two delegations, he declared in a video posted on his Facebook page.
“They thanked me for the offer and said they were going to study it,” added the minister. “We hope that an agreement will be found to start negotiations in the next few hours or days,” he insisted.
Hungary, a member of the European Union and NATO, has in recent years moved closer to Moscow under the leadership of sovereignist Viktor Orban, who nonetheless condemned the invasion on Thursday.
Russia had said it was willing to organize meetings with a Ukrainian delegation in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, before asking for a surrender of the Ukrainian army.
Before the invasion, the Kremlin had consistently rejected negotiations with Ukraine despite repeated requests from its leader Volodymyr Zelensky.