Orbán: Choice between war and peace at stake

A decision between war and peace is at stake in the April 3 general election, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in an interview to Saturday’s edition of the daily Magyar Nemzet, voicing his opinion that the opposition had “risked it all” by joining forces and that they would “lose everything” on Sunday.

“If we want peace then it’s best to choose the nationally minded side,” the prime minister said, adding that “those who want war should support the left.” Assessing the campaign, Orbán said it was surprising that despite the adverse circumstances “Hungary is in a sober state of mind” and Hungarians “have a crystal clear understanding of even the most complex international contexts”. The people understand that this election is a decision between war and peace and between being dragged into the war in Ukraine and staying out of it, Orbán said, adding that Hungarians at the same time were helping Ukrainians in any way they could.

He criticised as “absurd” the remark by opposition prime ministerial candidate Péter Márki-Zay that Ukraine was “fighting our war”, arguing that the war was being fought between two Slavic peoples.

Although this is not Hungary’s war “it still concerns us” because it is being fought in Hungary’s neighbouring country, Orbán said, adding that it was not just missiles that could accidentally be fired close to the Hungarian border but other military actions could be carried out nearby as well. If Hungary were to send weapons to Ukraine “we could expect the destructive strikes on the shipments at any second.”

“We are close to the warring parties, we know them and we can’t be tricked into doing something,” Orban said. He said Hungary still remembered how Ukraine had treated ethnic Hungarians in Transcarpathia and knew that the “Western illusions” that presented Ukraine as a model democracy “comes from not being familiar with the territory”.

Meanwhile, he said there was no doubt that “the responsibility for the war lies with the Russians” regardless of how they reached the decision to start it.

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At the same time, Hungary is helping Ukraine “but not because it’s fighting our war, but rather because Russia has launched a war on it and its existence has come under threat”, Orban said. He said there were certain Western countries that wanted to reshape the world that would emerge after the war so that the East and the West would be completely divided, adding that this would be bad for Hungarians and all of central Europe.

Orbán condemned the opposition’s remarks on the war,

insisting that the opposition and Ukraine’s leadership had an agreement in place that Hungary would start sending weapons to the country and cut off Russian oil and gas supplies to Hungary if they won Sunday’s election. He said this would happen “with the support of not just a few Western countries”.