Orbán: “We are treated worse than Russia”

2023-09-01 05:59:11

Yeni Vatan Newspaper translated the news published in Der Standard with the signature of Fabian Sommavilla into Turkish for you.

Orbán: „We are treated worse than Russia“.

The Standard, Fabian Sommavilla

The Hungarian prime minister believes US Democrats will engage in personal tit-for-tat on tax issues and thinks a victory in Ukraine is impossible. He fights for “free” media in Hungary every day.

When controversial US host Tucker Carlson invited Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán for an interview, two men came together whose political convictions had evolved in recent years in a decidedly similar, hard-right and illiberal, conspiracy narrative-driven direction. From a more liberal perspective. So it’s no surprise that in the 30-minute video posted Wednesday on

“This is a lie, it’s impossible”

When Carlson asks whether the view in the United States that Ukraine won the war against Russia is true, Orbán replies to Carlson: “It’s a lie, it’s impossible.” The Hungarian leader also believes that the reconquest of Crimea is impossible. In a seemingly simple calculation, he says the Ukrainians are more likely than Russia to run out of troops due to the size of their population – technology and strategy apparently play no part in his assessments. Moreover, Orbán claims that Russia will always produce more weapons than the West gives to Ukraine. “A historic opportunity to include Ukraine in NATO was missed,” Orbán said around 2008. With Russia, which later became stronger, this was no longer possible. However, according to the prime minister, it is important today to integrate Russia into the future security architecture of Europe.

Only once, towards the end of the interview, does Orbán seem genuinely happy to be part of NATO. Ultimately, he says, it’s about being stronger than Russia so one can feel safe. And he believes NATO countries are stronger than Moscow when it comes to conventional weapons; After all, Russia can’t even beat Ukraine.

World Savior Trump

Asked by Carlson what his next move would be if he were NATO chief or US president, Orban replied: “Peace. Immediately. And bring Trump back, that’s the only way out.” He says that Donald Trump, during his presidency between 2017 and 2021, made “the best foreign policy for the world in the last decades”, although of course even Trump is not without faults. Orbán thinks that if Trump had been in power in the United States in February 2022, Russia would not have attacked Ukraine in the first place.

Orbán says Trump is not starting a new war and is “being nice to North Korea, Russia and even China.” “So Trump is the only man who can save the Western world and perhaps all the people in the world,” he says, hinting at a possible nuclear conflict. The location of the interview was a terrace overlooking the Danube at Orbán’s residence, a former monastery in Buda Castle.

But Orbán also criticizes the United States, which is not led by Trump, on both sides. For example, double taxation of US citizens living in Hungary is causing Orbán a headache after the White House terminated an ongoing agreement with Russia. The long-time prime minister, who complains that we, as a US ally in NATO, are treated “worse than Russia”, apparently sees this as a personal problem. According to Orbán, in principle, it is easier and more enjoyable to develop economically with the United States than without it, but in case of doubt, it is also possible to survive alone.

„Loss of Hungarian lives in Ukraine“

Orbán also says, “As the Hungarian nation, we lose human lives every day,” addressing the Hungarian minority in Ukraine, which is claimed to be “brought back” many times in the Greater Hungary fantasies of Hungarian ultranationalists. Saying “Hungarian soldiers are dying for Ukraine as Ukrainian citizens,” Orbán apparently criticizes the recruitment of ethnic Hungarians into the Ukrainian army, but does not criticize the killing of the same people by Russian soldiers and Wagner mercenaries. At a later point in the interview, he says that it is still allowed to be patriotic, at least in Hungary.

During the interview, Tucker is extremely interested and enthusiastic as Orbán talks about a third world war that will break out as soon as a Western soldier enters Ukraine. Orbán says only this much about the Nord Stream pipelines, which, according to Carlson, were “unquestionably” blown up by the Biden administration “or its “surrogates”” – and he does this “without wanting to criticize the Germans”: To Hungary via Turkey and Serbia They made it clear that they could not reach an agreement with the states in the region along the southern corridor that brings gas, as they did with the Germans. This will not be allowed.

According to Orbán, the United States should be part of a peace agreement for Ukraine because they can negotiate peace tomorrow. After all, the “poor Ukrainians” will lose if they do not receive financial aid from the USA. The long-term prime minister thinks that no one else can decide peace and that Ukrainians should of course be involved.

“Free” media

According to Orbán, „family, nation and God“ are more important than the ego, but in Western societies they often come before the ego. This is the fault of ideological intellectuals who have infiltrated politics. Being a liberal in Europe now means being an enemy of freedom, says the convinced illiberal. Tucker Carlson, who was fired from Fox News for racist and violence-glorifying messages he sent on the very day of the Capitol Storm, also has interesting views on freedom. Carlson says that the media environment in Hungary is “much freer and more diverse” than in the USA, to which Orbán replies with a laugh: “I have to fight for that every day.”

Orbán says that in his first meeting with Vladimir Putin, he suggested skipping over the sad history of both states – for example, that the Hungarians revolted against the Habsburgs in the 19th century and were suppressed by orders from Vienna with the help of the Russian Tsar. Then the occupation in World War II and the suppression of the Hungarian national uprising in 1956. Despite everything, he is trying to establish a “rational relationship” with Moscow. But they are not Putin’s puppet, this is ridiculous and every Hungarian on the street will deny this, after all, they are sovereign, says Orbán. (Fabian Sommavilla, 31.8.2023)