If the Americans want peace, there will be peace, Ukraine is not sovereign, but it is a proud country, and Prigozhin's coup is insignificant, according to the prime minister. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán gave a major interview
Have you failed yet?
Prime Minister Yevgeny Prigozhin said regarding the weekend coup attempt, "I don't see the importance of this event in particular". When asked by the newspaper if he thinks anything will change in the course of the war after the Prigozhin rebellion, Orbán also answered in the negative: "I think the war is over and will continue. This is not an event that will lead us to peace. I always look at this war from the point of view of peace, because I think that the most important thing is to reach a ceasefire and somehow create peace.
This event plays no part in that.”
Bild asked in several ways whether, according to the Hungarian Prime Minister, Russian President Vladimir Putin will fail. According to Viktor Orbán, the reality is that Putin will remain the Russian president next year, because "the structures in Russia are very stable. They are based on the army, the secret service, the police, so this is a different kind of country with a military orientation". And since Russia is a different kind of country than Germany or Hungary, "the structure is different, the power is different, and the stability is also different."
"If we try to understand how they work based on our own logic, we will always be disappointed" -
said the prime minister.
Prime Minister, why did you become pro-Russian?
The Bild journalist also debunked the well-established stereotype that Viktor Orbán turned from an anti-Soviet freedom fighter into a Putinist. "In 1989, he gave a brave speech in Budapest, in which he demanded the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Hungary. Decades later, why did you put your country on Russia's side in some respects, why is it considered pro-Putin in Europe?" asked Bild.
Viktor Orbán asked back: "Are you provoking with this question? you know
that telling the Hungarians that we are pro-Russian or friends of the Russians goes against our historical experience."
The Prime Minister made it clear: "I am fighting for Hungary. I don't care about Putin. I don't care about Russia. I am interested in Hungary. What I do are positions and actions that are good for Hungary. And everything that is happening now between Russia and Ukraine is definitely bad for Hungary. It is dangerous for Hungary. We lost lives, Hungarian minorities live there. The danger posed by war is in our neighborhood."
How will there be peace here?
Bild also asked the Prime Minister why he thinks that the war has no solution on the battlefield. Viktor Orbán said: "I am not arguing against the Ukrainians. I don't want to appear as someone who does not hope that the Ukrainians have a chance to survive. But I stand on the ground of reality." He stated
the ukrainians will run out of soldiers before the russians and that will be the deciding factor in the end.
This is the basis from which I always argue.”
He emphasized: "I don't want to influence the Ukrainians, but I am constantly arguing for peace, peace, peace. Otherwise, there will be a huge loss of prosperity, many lives, and unimaginable destruction will follow.”
Viktor Orbán is not impressed by the fact that, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi, his country will sooner or later take back all territories. The Prime Minister said:
"I know this opinion. But what really matters is what Americans want to do. Ukraine is no longer a sovereign country. They have no money, no weapons. They can only fight because we here in the West support them. So if the American people decide they want peace, there will be peace.”
Orbán added: "If there had been negotiations from the beginning, there would not be so many dead today and the country would not have been destroyed."
You have to negotiate, but you don't have to
According to Viktor Orbán, "the only way to save Ukraine is for the Americans to initiate negotiations with the Russians, agree on the security architecture, and find a place for Ukraine in this new security architecture."
To Bild's intervention, according to which Ukraine has already decided that it does not want to negotiate, Orbán responded: "Ukraine is a nation, Ukraine is a country. You have the right to decide your own future, whether to go to war or not. We also have the right to give or not to give weapons and money if the Americans want it."
The daily also used the well-known trope that Russia is preparing to attack other countries. The prime minister was asked: “If I were to follow your advice, Putin would be the clear winner of this war. Wouldn't that mean it would go further? He could attack Poland, Estonia, Lithuania. Why stop at Ukraine?"
According to Viktor Orbán, Russia is "because it is not strong enough".
"The history of this war clearly shows that NATO is much stronger than Russia. Why would someone who is weaker want to attack NATO?”
About war crimes
When asked whether he thinks Putin is a war criminal, Orbán answered: "No, not for me." He explained that he does not talk about war criminals because "there is a war now, we can talk about war crimes after the war." He stated: "If we want a truce and then negotiations, we have to convince the participants in the conflict to come to the table.
Calling them to the table and saying 'come here to the table and I will arrest you' is not a good idea."
According to the Hungarian Prime Minister, Ukraine cannot be a member of NATO for the time being because it is at war, however, when asked about Ukraine's NATO perspective after the war, he replied, "we will discuss this."
At the end of the interview, he was also asked what he would say to the Ukrainian people, how he would justify his position to them. Viktor Orbán made it clear:
"I don't want to convince anyone of anything, that's not my job. This is not our war.
This is the war of the Ukrainians, making decisions on the moral and historical horizon is the sole business of the Ukrainian people. I would advise them to do what is best for them. But they have to decide for themselves what is best for them. No one else can define it, because they are an independent, proud nation and a proud country."
Bild will soon announce the continuation of the interview, the topic of which will be migration.
Featured Image: Benko Vivien Cher
