Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán reaffirmed his neutral position on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine during his state of the nation address on Saturday and called for looking “beyond Brussels.”
The prime minister’s nearly hour-long speech has emphasized his rejection of EU policies of approving sanctions against Moscow and encouraging arms shipments to Kyiv to stop the war in Ukraine, which reaches its first anniversary this February 24.
“The war in Ukraine is not a conflict between the armies of good and evil, but between two Slavic countries fighting each other. This is their war, not ours,” the president stressed while blaming the EU for transcending the conflict beyond its borders.
“If we want the security of Hungary and ensure its peace, we have only one option: to stay out of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine,” said the Hungarian leader in statements reported by the local media ‘The Budapest Times’.
In this sense, the prime minister has pointed to the left wing of the opposition for favoring Kyiv and sending weapons to the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky.
Respecting sympathizing with the Kremlin, Orbán has defended that sending humanitarian aid, which he has described as “the largest in the history of the country”, and welcoming Ukrainian refugees does not mean cutting ties with Moscow.
“We will maintain humanitarian aid to Ukraine, but also economic relations with Russia because what is at stake are national interests,” Orbán added, considering that sanctions against Russian oil “would lead Hungary to ruin.”
With information from LGI