Orbán: Ukrainians mistreated ethnic Hungarians in peacetime

Should the opposition win at Sunday’s general election, Hungary would drift into the war in Ukraine, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in an interview to commercial television channel TV2 on Saturday.

Orbán said it was in Ukraine’s interest to draw as many countries as possible into the conflict, and some European countries were ready to participate “directly or indirectly”. Hungary has a vested interest in staying out of it, he said. At stake at Sunday’s election is whether the country can stay out of the war or it will risk its security, he said. “The left has agreed with the Ukrainians, and Hungary will drift into the war if they win,” he said.

At the same time, certain European Union or NATO member states are also ready to help Ukraine “because they think Ukraine is fighting our war.

That is wrong, this is not our war. We can lose everything but gain nothing in it,”

he said.

“We help no one by having Hungary shot to pieces or sending weapons that will be shot to pieces in Transcarpathia. Nor do we help Ukraine by imposing sanctions on energy and ruining the Hungarian economy,” he said. Regarding sanctions on Russian energy resources, Orbán said

the nuclear plant in Paks had operated for forty years using Russian technology.

“The new facility will have to be constructed nearby, and such a plant cannot house two different technologies,” he said. Some 85 percent of Hungary’s gas supply and 60 percent of its oil arrives through pipelines from Russia, he said. Lacking a coast where it could receive tankers, this supply line has no alternatives, he said.

“Hungary is on the eastern edges, a frontline country or could easily become one, so silly ideas like sacrificing a little of our comfort to improve the world would not work here,” he said. Stopping energy deliveries from Russia would topple the Hungarian economy “in an instant”, he said.

If sanctions were imposed on Russian gas and oil, Hungary would have to use its reserves, and would have to shutter factories when they run dry in a few weeks, he said. “A lot of people would lose their jobs,”

he said.

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Orbán pledged to do everything in his power to avoid that. Hungary supports European unity and the sanctions against Russia — albeit it does not agree with them, it has accepted and refrained from vetoing them, he said. “But energy sanctions are a red line that cannot be crossed,” he said.

Orbán pointed out that Hungary was helping more Ukrainians relative to its population than any other country, noting that refugees were receiving food, accommodation, assistance for transportation and for taking up jobs, while children were being offered free preschool, kindergarten and school placement. Hungarians are helping Ukrainians fairly and from their hearts even though they remember that

Ukrainians had mistreated ethnic Hungarians in peacetime,

he said.

“War never ends the way those who start it envision it at the beginning, so we shouldn’t take any steps out of eagerness or emotion that we will regret later on,” he said.