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Prolonging the Ukrainian Conflict

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has accused the European Union of prolonging the war in Ukraine.


“Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said Saturday that the European Union is partly to blame for prolonging Russia’s war in Ukraine, doubling down on his government’s insistence that supporting Kyiv was a mistaken strategy for Europe.


Speaking at an annual state of the nation address in Budapest, Orban said the EU had fanned the flames of the war by sanctioning Russia and supplying Ukraine with money and weapons, rather than seeking to negotiate a peace with Moscow.


‘When Russia launched its attack, the West didn’t isolate the conflict but elevated it to a pan-European level’, Orban said. ‘The war in Ukraine is not a conflict between the armies of good and evil, but between two Slavic countries that are fighting against one another. This is their war, not ours’.


Under the slogan ‘Peace and Security’, Orban’s nearly hour-long address focused largely on the conflict in Ukraine, which is approaching its one-year mark, February 24th.


The right-wing populist leader has repeatedly called for an immediate ceasefire, saying he and his government are ‘on the side of peace’, and condemning his Western allies for providing assistance to Kiev.


Hungary, he said Saturday, is ‘part of the Western world, a member of NATO and the European Union where, aside from us, everyone supports the war or at least acts like they do’.


In recent months, Orban has spoken out strongly against several rounds of EU sanctions against Moscow, arguing that they’ve done little to stop the war and have hurt European economies more than Russia. Ultimately, however, he has always voted for them.


Breaking with most of its Western allies, Hungary has refused to provide military aid to Ukraine or allow its transfer across its borders, and has held up some EU efforts to provide financial aid packages to Kiev.


On Saturday, he said that while Hungary has provided humanitarian aid to Ukraine and taken in refugees who fled the war, such assistance ‘does not mean doing away with our relationships with Russia, because that would be contrary to our national interests’.


‘We are maintaining our economic relationship with Russia, and in fact, we recommend that the entire Western world do the same, because without relations, there will not be a ceasefire nor peace talks’, he said.


Over the last decade, Orban’s government has pursued increasingly close economic and diplomatic ties with Russia, and concluded major agreements on buying Russian gas, oil and nuclear fuel. Hungary has threatened to veto any EU sanctions that would affect its access to Russian energy”. -Justin Spike, Federal News Network


Viktor Orban is correct in that the European Union is only partially to blame for the prolonged war effort in Ukraine.


All this comes off the heels of the White House announcing that the United States will be selling investments of U.S. pensions to fund Ukrainian pensions, as well as the Secretary General of NATO declared that Ukraine could join NATO if it defeats Russia and establishes itself as a “sovereign, established state".



With these sorts of measures taken by the United States and NATO, it’s hard to foresee the Russians leaving Kiev anytime soon.