Hungarians want peace, according to a survey

Most Hungarians, 92 percent, want to see an immediate end to the Russia-Ukraine war and have the sides engage in peace talks, according to a survey conducted this month by the Századvég Foundation and released to MTI on Thursday.

Századvég gauged the opinion of Hungarians on a sample of 1,000 adults.

As the prospect of ending the war “has not drawn closer”, it is not surprising that the opinion of respondents has remained clearly negative about leading politicians involved directly or indirectly in the war, Századvég said.

This month, fully 67 percent of respondents expressed a negative opinion about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, compared with 68 percent in September while those seeing Russian President Vladimir Putin in a negative light increased to 72 percent from last month’s 68 percent. US President Joe Biden was seen negatively by 67 percent, up from 64 percent, the survey said. Fully 63 percent of respondents were at the opinion that Biden and his administration were in favour of continuing the war.

Századvég said the rejection of “Brussels’ policy of sanctions” by Hungarians was reflected in their opinion about the president of the European Commission with 55 percent seeing Ursula von der Leyen in a negative light compared with 50 percent in September.

“In Hungary, the government’s policy corresponds to a consistent stance of people supporting peace,” Századvég said, noting that 84 percent of the survey’s respondents expressed the opinion that “Hungary and Prime Minister Viktor Orbán supported a peaceful settlement to the armed conflict”.

Read alsoHungarian FM: No hope for peace without east-west dialogue

Source: MTI