PM Orbán: I hate to imagine what would happen if Russia lost the war

Hungary is “being dragged into war” but its leadership is strong enough to keep the country away from the conflict, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in an interview with the Swiss daily Weltwoche.

Hungary was hit hard by the sanctions imposed on Russia by the European Union, Orbán said in the interview published on Thursday. The sanctions have driven up the price of oil and gas, and the cost of supplying the growing energy needs of Hungary’s industry has risen from 7 billion euros in 2021 to 17 billion in 2022, he said.

“We are under constant pressure. They want to drag us into the war with every possible means. So far, we have managed to resist… Hungary’s political leadership is strong enough to keep our homeland away from the war,” he said.

“The decisions made in Brussels [regarding Ukraine] mirror American interests more often than European ones,” Orbán said.

This war “cannot be won”, Orbán said. “Ukraine is facing a nuclear power with 140 million inhabitants. Russia is facing the entire NATO… this is a stalemate, which could easily devolve into world war,” he said.

Orbán ban quoted Russian President Vladimir Putin as saying at their last meeting two weeks before the war started that “he had no problem with Hungary’s NATO membership, only with that of Ukraine and Georgia… Putin told me his problem was with the American missile bases in Poland and Romania, and a possible NATO expansion in Ukraine and Georgia to station weapons there.” “The Americans also withdrew from important disarmament agreements,” Orbán added.

“I understand what Putin said. I do not accept what he did,” Orbán said.

Orbán said European political norms did not work in Russia, and Europe had to find a way to live together with a “large, dangerous power in our neighbourhood.”

On the possibity of Russia losing the war, Orbán said: “Russia is a nuclear power. It would be a geopolitical shock, a global, potentially disastrous earthquake, much worse than the collapse of the former Yugoslavia. The fact that the West takes that scenario so lightly shows a frightening blindness towards the risks inherent in our policies,” he said.