‘Russians Only Understand the Language of Force’ – Hungary’s Viktor Orbán

During a weekend visit to France to attend a “Patriots for Europe” leaders meeting on June 8-9, Hungary’s Prime Minister Orbán gave an interview with the French TV channel LCI, in which he expressed his views on several EU and NATO related issues as well as the war in Ukraine.

The meeting was hosted by Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella from the right-wing French National Rally. In addition to Orbán, former Czech premier Andrej Babis, Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini and the leader of Spain’s Vox party Santiago Abascal also attended.

Speaking about Ukraine with Darius Rochebin, a Swiss journalist of Iranian origin, Orbán maintained his oft-voiced opinion that Kyiv is unfit for EU or NATO membership, saying its inclusion would be an economic disaster for both blocs – adding that “Ukraine was a bankrupt state even before the war.”

He did say, however, that Ukraine had every right to defend itself and was doing so “heroically,” before adding that the leaders of the Russian Federation “only understand the language of force, so Europe must also take steps to make itself strong.”

Asked whether he was concerned that the war in Ukraine could spill over into mainland Europe, he said he was not worried about Russia attacking NATO countries, as “The Russians are too weak for that – they can’t even defeat Ukraine.”

Other Topics of Interest

Hungary Says It Has Deal With Ukraine on Minority Rights, Ties It to EU Accession Talks

Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar announced that Hungary and Ukraine have reached a “comprehensive agreement” to broaden language, cultural, educational and political rights for roughly 100,000 ethnic Hungarians in Ukraine’s Zakarpattia region, following several weeks of expert-level talks. Kyiv has pledged to write the agreed measures into Ukrainian law, reflecting them in the EU accession action plan. Budapest indicated it would support opening the first negotiating cluster for Ukraine.

Orbán said that having met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow in December he was convinced that “neither the Europeans nor the Ukrainians will be able to reach an agreement with Russia.” He said it needed the “toughness” of US President Donald Trump to resolve the war in Ukraine as the only way of achieving peace by way of a strategic agreement between the Kremlin and the White House.

Turning his focus onto one of his usual “bête noirs” – France’s President Emanuel Macron – he said “I believe we understand Ukrainian history a bit better than the French… We don’t have to love the Russians, but we do need to make deals with them.”

He added his voice to a call for a ceasefire but said that in his view the first steps towards that should be the lifting of sanctions against Moscow as their only effect had been to cost Hungary €20 billion and were “destroying Europe’s economy too.”

Much of the interview focused on Orbán’s apparent contempt for the direction being taken by the European Union, which he said was a fantastic idea but argued that Hungary’s core values of freedom, participation, and democracy were progressively being sidelined by an EU increasingly “dancing to France and Germany’s tunes.”

He bemoaned the absence of British influence post-Brexit, which had led to the EU of using successive crises – migration, COVID, climate transition, war, and sanctions – to become pretexts for the further centralization of power and the undermining of national sovereignty.

Orbán declared :“I was and still am a street freedom fighter,” and that his mission was to continue Hungary’s historic resistance to excessive external control – arguing that the greatest threat to Budapest’s freedom was coming from Brussels not Moscow.