The end of the Orbán-Putin friendship?

Maria Zaharova, a spokeswoman of the Russian foreign affairs ministry, attacked the Hungarian PM in a Facebook post because of what Viktor Orbán said in a speech about the Soviet army. She added that he does not respect the Red Army, but that is a typical attitude in a country which was the ally of Nazi Germany.

According to telex, PM Viktor Orbán inaugurated the statue of George H. W. Bush on October 27 in Budapest. In his speech, the Hungarian prime minister clearly gave his opinion of the two monuments on the square, calling them the monuments of the German and Russian occupation.

On his website, the full speech is available in English, and telex quotes the beginning lines of it: “Szabadság tér. Liberty Square: the square of freedom. A telling name – especially now, in the week of the anniversary of the 1956 Revolution. But we Hungarians also remember that, on 6 October 1849, the courtyard of the barracks which once stood here was the place of execution of the first Hungarian prime minister. The life of the first prime minister of the Hungarian people came to an end in front of the occupiers’ firing squad. This sent a clear message to all his successors. For those who are slower on the uptake, at one end of the square there is a memorial to the

victims of the German occupation, while at the other end there is a memorial to the victims of the Soviet occupation.

This, too, sends a clear message. If you are Hungarian, you only have two options to choose from: either you side with the occupiers, or you side with freedom.”

In 1944-45, Soviet forces could expel the German Wehrmacht and their Hungarian allies, which they call liberation. Now, the Hungarian PM spoke about occupation, and that is what the Russian foreign affairs ministry spotted and criticised harshly.

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Marija Zaharova, the spokeswoman of the ministry, highlighted in a post that the 80 thousand Red Army soldiers who died during the siege of the Hungarian capital sacrificed their lives for the liberation of Hungary from fascist rule. Calling that an occupation is

a perverting statement,

and it falsifies the historical truths of the second world war examined during the Nuremberg trials. She added that such statements forget about how Admiral Horthy’s Hungary was a close ally of Hitler.

The spokeswoman said that Hitler and Hungary took an active part in the aggression against Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, as well as the mass executions committed against civilians in the occupied territories. The Soviet Red Army delivered peace and freedom for those countries, saving the people of Europe from the brown plague. Today, some countries would

like to distort facts

so that they can hide the fact that their countries led by regimes that were Nazi allies played a key role, she concluded.

It is not the first time that Ms Zacharova attacks a European leader. Before, she said about Serbian president Aleksandar Vučić’s meeting with Donald Trump that it was like a scene from Basic Instinct (1992). She said after President Trump’s victory that she was not surprised because if one wants to know what would happen in America, they have to talk with Jews, and she did that. She also called the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal a smear campaign.

Source: telex.hu