Péter Magyar shares secret voice record: defence minister talks about moving into phase 0 of the road to war – UPDATED

“Viktor Orbán’s government have lied to Hungarians about peace but it turns out they are ready to take our wonderful country to war,” Péter Magyar, head of the opposition Tisza Party, MEP, said on Facebook on Thursday.

Orbán cabinet a government of lies and war, says Magyar

Below his post, Magyar published a voice recording attributed to the defence minister, recorded in April 2023, talking, among other things, about the government aiming to set up a capable, combat-ready Hungarian army. “Viktor Orbán’s government is a government of lies and war. It’s over. They must go,” Magyar said in his post.

“In this recording, the defence minister admits, in fact, he proudly announces that what they have been preaching about for years is just a stupid lie,” the head of the Tisza Party said. “Last year, the presidential pardon scandal made it clear that Orbán and his government only protected families and children in words and they were actually the ones supporting pedophile monsters. Now it turns out that while the government has been talking about protecting Hungarians for years, they are the ones who would be willing to sacrifice the security of their compatriots for money and power. This is not a political mistake. This is a crime. A crime for which there will never be a pardon”.

In the recording, the minister talks about the government having decided to set up a strong, capable Hungarian army. “This means that we are breaking with our peace activities. We know what these are; but we are basically breaking with the peace mentality through a process. It is natural that the process publicly known as rejuvenation is simply the easiest way to change this. Let us break with the peace mentality and move into phase zero of the road to war. I am asking Lieutenant General Gábor Böröndi to carry out and implement this. “

‘Peace requires strength’ – here’s the reaction of the defence minister

“Peace requires strength,” Kristof Szalay-Bobrovniczky, the defence minister, said on Thursday, commenting on an audio recording published by the opposition Tisza Party. Szalay-Bobrovniczky said on Facebook in response “I am building a military that is able and ready to protect the country with arms … peace requires strength.”

Head of Prime Minister’s Office comment

Commenting on a recording published by the head of the Tisza Party on his Facebook page, Gergely Gulyás, the head of the Prime Minister’s Office said it was “nothing out of the ordinary”, in the face of an immediate threat of war, what the defence minister was saying was self-evident and the right thing to do.

“In fact, we can all see that this is nothing to write home about. Nothing happened here. A defence minister is saying that the soldiers must defend the country, who else would be talking about this, if not him,” Gulyás said. The Hungarian government has done everything in recent years for peace, but soldiers must prepare for war and the defence of the country, not peace, he said.

The difference is that while the previous chief of staff, Gulyás said, referring to Romulusz Ruszin-Szendi, who has taken up a role in Tisza, wants to defend Ukraine and deploy soldiers to Ukraine, the defence minister and the Hungarian military must defend Hungary, he added. Gulyás also noted that the Hungarian prime minister talked about the need for a joint European defence force well before the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. “We were the ones who recognised that there was a major change taking place in the world, the threat of war was getting greater than before, and if somebody must prepare for this, it was the military,” he said.

UPDATE: Ruszin-Szendi says ready to face ‘any investigation’

Romulusz Ruszin-Szendi, the opposition Tisza Party’s defence expert who was formerly Hungary’s chief of staff, has said in a statement that he was ready to “face any investigation” as “the truth and the profession” were on his side. He said the defence ministry was trying to “smear” him by accusing him of failing to represent the government’s position at NATO meetings. In his statement on Friday, he said the government was deflecting reports of a “scandalous speech” by the current defence minister “who has been pro-war for years”.

Referring to “the unfortunate hand grenade accident”, Ruszin-Szendi said he had highlighted “their incompetence and lack of manliness … based on facts and not on fabrications”. He said the government had at various times accused him of being pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian while discarding the fact that he had served his country. He accused the government of being all too willing to “falsify documents”, taking advantage of the fact that NATO protocols are secret.

Ruszin-Szendi said it was not him who posed a threat to national security but “he who would lead the country into war openly”. “Soldiers always prepare for battle; there’s nothing new here,” he said, adding this had been the case at home and abroad under his leadership of the army. The government, however, was making a “weak attempt to explain the outrageous speech, which contained a clear government war directive”, he insisted, calling them “liars and pro-war”.

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