Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban (60) refuses to call the Russian invasion of Ukraine a war, preferring to call it an “operation”. “As long as there is no declaration of war by the two countries, it will remain an operation,” the nationalist leader said during his annual press conference in Budapest. He uses the same choice of words as Russian President Vladimir Putin, who repeatedly calls the war “a special military operation”.
During the press conference, Orban responded to a journalist’s question about why he avoids the term war in conversations with Putin. According to the Hungarian Prime Minister, some people would describe the events as a war, “but we Hungarians do not dictate to anyone what words to use to talk about it. We are glad it is not a war,” he said.
Orban is the only European leader to maintain good relations with Putin. The two met last October in the Chinese capital Beijing.
Support to Ukraine
During the press conference, Orban also talked about his dispute with Europe. The European Commission froze 21 billion euros in funds for Hungary last year because the country did not meet a number of conditions for fundamental rights. Earlier this month, the Commission re-released €10 billion in cohesion funds for Hungary.
LOOK. “I shouldn’t have said that”: Prime Minister De Croo gives an unvarnished opinion about Prime Minister Orban’s statements during the EU summit
On the one hand, Orban rejected the accusation that he wanted to link the issue to the EU’s plans for additional aid to Ukraine. The Prime Minister even emphasized that he is in principle in favor of financial aid to Ukraine, because Budapest views Ukraine as a buffer between Hungary and Russia.
“Evil that affects Western democracies”
Orban also warned about “the evil that is affecting Western democracies”. “We have to be careful because there is a great Western democracy where, if I understand correctly, they want to block a presidential candidate by putting judicial obstacles in his way,” he said, referring to his US ally Donald Trump. The Colorado Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that Trump cannot run for president because of his actions during the 2020 election.
In addition, Orban expressed his reservations about the new Polish government’s decision to dismiss the entire management team of the Polish public broadcaster. The public media, controlled by the nationalist and populist PiS government (with which Orban was close), was regularly accused of carrying partisan information and government propaganda and of launching attacks on the opposition. The Hungarian Prime Minister pointed out that if something like this happened in Hungary, “NATO forces might have already intervened.”
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