LMP: Government unable to protect Hungary from Russia

Budapest (MTI) – The government is unable to protect Hungary from “Russia, the coloniser”, green opposition LMP said on Wednesday, the day before Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Hungary.

Co-leaders Bernadett Szél and Ákos Hadházy, as well as board member Péter Ungár criticised Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán at a press conference in Szabadság Square near parliament at a Soviet war memorial. Szél said LMP was working for a renewing Hungary in which there is no longer room for either a Soviet heroes’ memorial or leaders who “qualify for dictators or pocket dictators”. Orbán is governing against the people when he is developing ever closer ties with Russia and his “Putin-dependence” costs a lot to the country, she added.

Hadhazy said only the means of colonisation have changed over the years and Russia is now using energy and finances to make Hungary dependent. Russia wants to export a system in which NGOs, media outlets, opposition forces and human rights can only survive with the consent of the country’s leaders, he added.

Ungar said the expansion of Russia’s influence was previously thought to belong to the past but it is now again gaining ground. It is shocking that the Hungarian government is ready to “dishonour Hungarian history” in order to help Orban and his closest supporters gain “assumed or real economic benefits”, he said.

Source: MTI