NATO and the EU are largely in agreement on how to deal with Russia's aggression - only Hungary occasionally falls out of line. Prime Minister Orban also has to admit that. However, it does not change his stance on the war in Ukraine.
Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban has acknowledged that his country is isolated in Western alliances with its stance on Russia's war against Ukraine. "We don't need sanctions (against Russia), but an immediate ceasefire and immediate peace negotiations," said the right-wing politician on state radio. However, apart from Hungary, no one else in NATO and the EU takes this position, he added. "For the time being, no one but us will strike this note."
"Everyone is on the side of the Ukrainians, because people tend to side with the attacked and keep their fingers crossed for the attacked," Orban continued. But at the same time one has to face the "military realities". Russia's supremacy means that "the war zone will move closer to Hungary much faster than most Hungarians think."
Hungary, which has been a member of NATO since 1999 and the EU since 2004, borders Ukraine in the northeast. The current theaters of war are more than 1,000 kilometers from the Hungarian-Ukrainian border. Orban, who maintains a good relationship with Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin, initially only half-heartedly condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine. When the EU's most recent package of sanctions was imposed, he used his veto threat to ensure that Russian oil supplies to Hungary remain exempt from the EU's oil supply boycott.
