Viktor Orbán‘s victory speech in Budapest on Sunday night took a curious turn. Speaking after a fourth landslide win, he opined:
This victory is one to remember because we had the biggest [opponents] to overpower. The left at home, the international left, the bureaucrats in Brussels… the Soros empire… and even the Ukrainian President.
Orbán skipped over the challenge to regional stability caused by the Russian invasion of neighbouring Ukraine. Having refused military aid to Kyiv, and having exchanged barbs with President Volodymyr Zelensky, he reassured ethnic Hungarians in West Ukraine: ‘Don’t be afraid, the motherland is with you’.
Those words make for curious reading days after Csaba Belénessy, a leading figure in the ruling Fidesz party, said publicly that Hungary must ‘be emotionally and financially ready to accept back the Hungarian people and/or the Hungarian territory’. You read that correctly: Orbán’s party is raising the prospect of secession of Ukrainian lands, midway through the Russian invasion.
State media in Hungary has continued to reiterate Moscow’s propaganda, including references to a ‘special operation’ within their neighbour’s territory rather than an ‘invasion’ or ‘war’. Fidesz-linked security experts have appeared on air defending the intervention, talking in terms of Ukrainian provocation or the safeguarding of ethnic Russians in the country. Fidesz officials have said little to demur from these suggestions.
Indeed Fidesz-controlled media branded the mayor of Budapest a ‘traitor’ for flying the Ukrainian flag from City Hall. A key attack line against opposition leader Péter Márki-Zay was that he was a ‘CIA agent’ – a curious barb from the leading party in a Nato member state.
Indeed, it emerged shortly before election day that Hungary’s Foreign Ministry has long tolerated Russian penetration of its ‘secure’ internal computer networks.
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