Radioactive Rhetoric? Hungary Wants Ukraine’s Counteroffensive To Stop Before It Even Starts

With friends like Hungary, does Ukraine really need enemies? New remarks from the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orban, about the direction of the war in Ukraine could catapult that question beyond rhetorical territory. In an interview with the Hungarian state radio station, Mr. Orban not only questioned the timing of an anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive, but rejected the notion that there should be one at all. The comments, almost instantly rejected by Ukraine, risk sending mixed signals to Kyiv and underscore simmering political tensions within the eastern flank of the NATO alliance. They could also undercut Western confidence in the counteroffensive, which, despite months of preparation, is already shaping up to be a tougher battle than many analysts have foreseen. Mr. Orban stopped short of saying that he felt that Ukraine would be in the wrong to seek to expel Russian forces from its territory. Yet in comments that unwittingly dovetailed with some made by President Trump in a “town hall” on CNN last month, Mr. Orban said, “Before the Ukrainians launch a counterattack, we must do everything in our power to achieve a ceasefire and start peace talks.”He prefaced that, like Mr. Trump, by evoking the inherent violence of armed conflict — a fact that does tend to recede from the headlines when more dramatic news involving drone strikes and explosions at oil depots takes visual precedence. “The conduct of major strategic offensives is a bloodbath,” Mr. Orban said. “Even a person like me, who has only a year and a half of military service, knows that the attacking side has three times more casualties than the defending side.”In response the spokesman for Ukraine’s foreign ministry, Oleh Nikolenko, wrote in a social media post, “Ukraine has clearly stated its position: peace talks can be possible only after the full withdrawal of the Russian troops from the territory of Ukraine. A ceasefire without fulfillment of this condition will freeze the status quo and allow Russia to regroup, accumulate forces and start a new wave of aggression.” Kyiv also took exception to Mr. Orban’s statement that he is “the only prime minister in the EU who advocates peace.” To “alleviate that situation” Mr. Nikolenko called on Mr. Orban to “condemn Russian aggression, demand that Moscow stops the war and return the Russian army to Russian territory, join the measures of international isolation of Russia, and not undermine the unity in the EU.”The Hungarian leader is not likely to do that. Since the Russian invasion, Hungary has thrown more support to Russia generally and Mr. Orban to Vladimir Putin personally. How else to account for Budapest’s continuing refusal to join the rest of the EU in sanctioning Moscow? Much of Budapest’s hostility to Ukraine can be traced less to love for Russian gas, which can be replaced easily enough, than to the perceived mistreatment of a Hungarian minority in western Ukraine.That is a longstanding, tangled situation that pre-dates the Russian invasion of Ukraine and partially reflects the patchwork of old ethnic tensions in Eastern Europe and in the Balkans that are often just beneath the surface and tend to rear their heads at inconvenient times.Now that Kosovo is back in the news, and not for good reasons, the antipathy between Hungary and Ukraine can be seen in a new and troubling light. The iconoclastic Hungarian premier has recently veered into torpedoing his own contrarian cause by belittling Ukraine’s military. He told the Qatar Economic Forum last week, “Looking at the reality, the figures, the surroundings, the fact that NATO is not ready to send troops, it is obvious that there is no victory for the poor Ukrainians on the battlefield. That’s my position.”After more than a year of Russian bombardment and wholesale destruction of swaths of Ukraine, President Zelensky is still navigating choppy diplomatic waters, of which Mr. Orban is just one pesky crosscurrent. Prime Minister Sunak said that Ukraine’s “rightful place is in NATO,” and he is far from the only leader who thinks so. So, obviously, does Mr. Zelensky, but remarks he made at a joint press conference with Estonia’s president, Alar Karis, at Kyiv today were also more measured. “Accession to NATO is the best guarantee of security for Ukraine,” Mr. Zelensky said. He added that “we are not looking for a replacement for NATO. But … we understand that we will not drag a single NATO country into a conflict.”In other words, while the war is ongoing, Mr. Zelensky understands that what Ukraine needs now more than a NATO membership card is security guarantees until the hostilities wind down. In that respect, and beyond Mr. Orban’s bombast, Hungary and Ukraine — which after all share a border in the heart of Europe — could ultimately be more on the same page than it might appear at first reading.

Radioactive Rhetoric? Hungary Wants Ukraine’s Counteroffensive To Stop Before It Even Starts

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