PM Orbán does not believe in Ukrainian victory – UPDATED

The Visegrád cooperation has “meaning and future” despite differences in opinion on support for Ukraine, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said after attending a summit of the Visegrád Group in Prague on Tuesday. Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó welcomed it as good news for Hungary that the leaders of the four Visegrád Group countries agreed on continuing the bloc’s cooperation at their meeting in Prague on Tuesday which he said was also in Hungary’s national interest.

“Today’s meeting convinced me that Visegrád is alive and important. We are able to respectfully acknowledge our differences even if we debate each other’s stances. We continue to strengthen cooperation in joint issues. Hungary is ready to do that,” Orbán told a press conference.

The Czech, Polish and Slovak prime ministers also acknowledged differences and took a stance for continued cooperation.

Orbán said the summit “was not one of the easiest ones” as it had focused on “self-reflection” and on whether the Visegrád Group should be maintained in its current form.

He noted that a similar meeting had taken place after the EU integration of the Visegrád countries, ending in the decision to maintain cooperation.

The war in Ukraine “has overwritten everything”, and so the issue was back on the table, Orbán said.

Avoid joint border with Russia

The prime ministers of Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia were in agreement that Russia’s attack on Ukraine had been a “gross violation of international law”, and that Ukraine needed aid, Orbán said. “Hungary has another issue, namely that it wants to avoid having a joint border with Russia again, as it had bad experiences in the past,” he added.

“One of the most important baselines of Hungarian national security is to have an entity between us and Russia. We help Ukraine also out of our own national interest,” he said.

At the same time, Orbán said the Visegrád countries disagreed on “how to help Ukraine well”.

“Hungary’s stance is clear: we shall not send weapons to Ukraine, with or without troops, but are ready to provide any other aid,” he said, noting the country’s efforts on humanitarian aid and care to Ukrainian refugees.

Despite those differences, Orbán said carrying on with the Visegrád cooperation “makes sense”.

Cooperation has been successful on issues such as illegal migration “as the matter of [mandatory resettlement] quotas is not off the table”. “Without our cooperation, tens or hundreds of thousands of migrants would be roaming our countries.”

It is impossible to tell who will win

Asked who he thought would win the war, Orbán called the question a “trap” and said “it is impossible to tell who will win.”

He rejected “branding” one or the other of the parties “culpable or guilty… that doesn’t lead anywhere”. “I suggest everyone maintains a strategic calm on the issue.”

“All countries have the right to view the Russia-Ukraine war from Russia or Ukraine’s viewpoint.” Hungary, Orbán said, was unique in that respect as it viewed the matter from a Hungarian viewpoint. Hungarians maintain that neither Russia nor Ukraine backed by the West would be able to defeat the other, he said. In that situation, it is imperative to save lives and start peace talks as soon as possible, he said.