This content was originally published by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and is reprinted with permission.
Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban— who has been assailed by the West for his usually Russian-friendly position — has suggested that Ukraine may get its war with Russia and pressed once for negotiations, also as a Hungarian opposition figure disrupted his news conference at the European Parliament.
“We don’t need to stop anything. We just want to encourage European leaders to change their strategy [regarding Ukraine ] because the current strategy does not work, ” Orban told investigators on October 8.
“If you don’t gain on the battlefield — you have to talk, you have to discuss, you have to have a cease-fire. ”
Orban is in Strasbourg to handle the legislature on October 9 to indicate Central European country ’s six-month stay in the rotating EU presidency.
The nationalist Orban state has maintained relations with Moscow despite Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Orban has opposed support to Kyiv and even angered the EU with his extremely totalitarian law and for his relations to China.
Marton Gyekiczki, an activist and capital chairman for Hungary’s opposition Democratic Alliance ( DK), interrupted Orban’s media event, tossing a stack of what appeared to be coins at the prime minister.
“How many did you sell out the land for? How much have you betrayed the state for, Mr. Prime Minister? ” Gyekiczki shouted.
“ He sold out to [Russian President Vladimir ] Putin. He sold out to [ Chinese leader ] Xi Jinping! ”
A video posted virtual showed Gyekiczki approaching Orban before he was escorted out of the house.
Immediately before Orban’s press conference, the parliament’s rapporteur on the condition in Hungary and the rule of law, Tineke Strik of the Netherlands, told investigators “what Orban did not say in his talk tomorrow. ”
Orban “will present himself as a competent and strong Council [of the EU] presidency, an honest broker even, ” Strik said “ But he will stay silent about the problem, the total state record, his 24-hour advertising technology, and his authoritarian stranglehold on virtual every aspect of Hungarian world. ”
Orban even told investigators that U. S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump— if elected – may soon start working on a peace package for Ukraine, no waiting until his January 20 opening, and that EU officials would need to be prepared.
By laws and history, recently elected U. S. leaders do not participate in setting state guidelines prior to taking office.
Orban has huge endorsed Trump, who critics say may attempt to force Ukraine into agreeing to terms with Russia that have been intolerable to Kyiv.