Orbán: ‘There is no war in Ukraine’ as no declaration of war from Russia

Orbán Putin visit Russian cyber attacks
Photo: www.facebook.com/OrbánViktor

There is no war in Ukraine, Viktor Orbán said at a government briefing on Thursday. Asked why, during his visit to Beijing, in the company of Vladimir Putin, he called the war in Ukraine a military operation according to the Russian narrative, he said “because it is a military operation, as long as there is no declaration of war between the two countries”.

You read that right: Viktor Orbán, Prime Minister of Hungary, neighbour country of Ukraine, just said that there is no war in Ukraine. He called it a “military operation” (which is in line with the Russian narrative), and he said the reason was that there has not been an official proclamation of war.

“Let us rejoice as long as there is no war. Because if there is a war, there is a general mobilisation, and I don’t wish that on anyone,” the prime minister said. Orbán not only took the already pushed Russian narrative of war in the pro-government press to a new level, but also contradicted all his own previous statements, Telex writes.

So far, the narrative has been clear: there is a serious war going on in Ukraine that Hungary needs to stay out of. Orbán said there was a war in the neighbouring country even a day ago. Yesterday, it was an important point to make, as he had to argue against Ukraine’s opening of EU accession negotiations.

“It seems to me that we have three problems at once, and the world and our lives are more dangerous than they were a year ago. We are plagued by the war between Russia and Ukraine,”

Orbán said.

Putin Orbán
Photo: FB

“But we’ve never done it before where we have a country that is at war and we start negotiations with a country that is at war,”

he added.

Most recently, his foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, has said that this staying out of the war is the greatest success of Hungarian foreign policy. Russian propaganda was still prevalent though: he suggested that what is happening is the responsibility of the West, or perhaps of the actor Zelenskyy, who is at war instead of negotiating.

“To call what Russia is doing in Ukraine a war is not a legal question, but a universal moral question,” Telex concludes. How PM Orbán can soundly sleep at night or look into the mirror still, is a question for another day.

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