On his weekly Friday interview on Kossuth Radio, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said “only Western money keeps Ukraine alive and the Ukrainian army operational” and Europe “is at the limit of its capacity” to support Ukraine any further. Therefore, it is “up to the United States to decide the outcome” of the war, Orbán said.
Instead of keeping the conflict local as during the annexation of Crimea, “the West chose to fight to the last Ukrainian soldier,” Orbán charged, escalating a regional conflict “to a Western, European, and then global level.”
Orbán said that “if there is a war, then it makes sense to talk about peace,” as the war is “depriving hundreds of thousands of people of a full life, including family members, orphaned children, and widows. If the voice of peace is not strong enough, the prevailing public perception among politicians will be that the only solution in such a situation is war.”
“There will be no better conditions for peace negotiations than the present,” Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said Friday following his meeting with Turkish foreign minister Hakan Fidan. “Yesterday’s conditions were better than today’s, and tomorrow’s conditions will be worse than today’s,” Szijjártó said. Budapest still believes “there is no (military) solution” for the conflict.
Speaking at a Mathias Corvinus Collegium event in Esztergom, north of Budapest, Hungarian Foreign Minister Szijjártó regretted that Europe had “sunk into war psychosis”.
“This war is bad, it is brutal, with people dying and the country (Ukraine) practically reduced to ruins; this war must be terminated and condemned, clearly naming who is the aggressor and who is the victim,” Szijjártó said. “But when you call for peace talks, you will be called a Putin apologist, a Kremlin propagandist or a Russia agent.”
Szijjarto noted the EU usually “immediately calls for a ceasefire and peace talks whenever there is an armed conflict elsewhere in the world”. In the case of Ukraine, however, peace is viewed as “harmful and unacceptable.”
“Conditions for peace will be worse tomorrow and yesterday they were better than today, because there were fewer dead yesterday. There will only be more dead tomorrow,” Szijjártó said.
Szijjártó called a proposal for €20 billion for weapons for Ukraine in the next four years “appalling” meaning that “the war will go on for at least another four years”.
Szijjártó noted that the EU is withholding funds from Hungary due to alleged “rule of law” infringements, but now wants Hungary to contribute €200 million the war.
The “real reason” that Brussels is withholding funds from Europe is that it is on “a mission to oust Hungary’s Christian Democratic and patriotic government,“ Szijjártó said.
“This is brutal because they cite a lack of democracy in Hungary as the reason for all procedures against the country, while it is they that trample on democracy and refuse to accept the democratic will of the Hungarian people,” Szijjártó said. “Brussels and Europe’s bureaucracy are the greatest disgrace for democracy,” he added.
Answering a question regarding Biden Ambassador David Pressman, Szijjártó said foreign ambassadors are expected not to interfere in the domestic affairs of the host country, nor should they participate in demonstrations. “If an ambassador of mine kept interfering with the politics of the other country, I would recall them instantly; it is not their duty to do so, while it is also disrespectful towards the recipient country,” the Foreign Minister said.
At his annual speech to the Hungarian minority community in Romania July 22 in Băile Tuşnad, Romania, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán accused the EU of rejecting “Christian heritage, managing population replacement through migration, and waging an LGBTQ offensive against family-friendly European nations. “
“Just a few days ago we saw the fall of Lithuania, which had a really fine, remarkable, great child protection law, which we used as a starting point when constructing ours. And I see that, under great pressure, the Lithuanians have withdrawn and annulled the child protection laws that they had adopted back in 2012. “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts…” This is where American friendship leads, Dear Friends!“
Orbán charged that Europe has “created its own political class, which is no longer accountable and no longer has any Christian or democratic convictions.” The European superstate has led to “an unaccountable empire”, Orbán said:
“We have no other choice. For all our love of Europe, for all that it is ours, we must fight. Our position is clear: we do not want everyone to share the same faith, and we do not want everyone to have the same family life or to celebrate the same public holidays; but we insist on having our common home, our common language, our common public sphere and our common culture, and that this is the basis for the security, freedom and prosperity of Hungarians. Therefore this must be protected at all costs. This is why we shall not compromise. We shall not back down. In Europe we shall insist on our rights. We shall not yield to political or financial blackmail.“
Viktor Orbán visits the MCC Youth Camp in Romania:
By Richard Abelson