Well I don’t know if Kyiv is going to fall tomorrow, but it is obvious there is a lack of…
Petike, You invent Campaign Lies!
Today I need to start with my closing words of yesterday. Again I need to talk about foreign minister Szijjártó, who declared that the Russian take-over of computers including secret communication lines would be a campaign lie. After denial of the documented Russian attack he turned against both Ukraine and Unity for Hungary. He invented that both are meeting on continuously to help each other. That both have a comparable view, a view that is very common all over the world with the exception of Russia, doesn’t make the minister thinking. Szijjártó instead pushes the tale about a conspiracy between Ukraine and Unity for Hungary – for the sake of Russia and FIDESZ.
It started with a 3rd class FIDESZ figure, who declared Ukraine meddled into Hungarian affair by sustaining Unity for Hungary in the elections. Regime media picked-up this story and made from a claim a “fact” in their reporting. Just a side note: I see since a couple of days the FIDESZ directed KESMA media having ads all through the internet with headlines about uncovering the bad intentions of the opposition. 3 word messages taken out of a sentence, which in full had a completely other meaning when said. FIDESZ not only went way above the legal upper limit for advertisements, they not only use their media for spreading weird stories instead of doing journalism, but push their election campaign this with an aggressive add campaign through the regime media as well, sometimes even using exactly the same graphics as FIDESZ.
Szijjártó declared that Ukraine and the opposition, “the Hungarian left,” are holding ongoing consultations to start the delivery of weapons in case of a victory. He claimed that the foreign minister of Ukraine would have ordered his ambassador in Budapest to inform about the possibilities to influence the results of the elections. Népszava asked the Hungarian minister how he got knowledge about what his Ukrainian colleague and the Ukrainian ambassador have said to each other, but they did not get an answer ►HU.
Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s minister of foreign affairs, reacted as following ►HU: “Contrary to Hungary’s attitude to Ukraine we have never meddled into Hungary’s internal affairs, especially during the days before the upcoming elections. It is unfortunate that for the short-term benefit regarding the elections, minister Szijjártó is ready to invent nonsense, thereby ruining down the long-term relationship between our countries. If the Lavrov order is more important to him than the relationship with me, it would be advisable to state this openly.”
Let’s have a look onto the “short-term benefit regarding the elections”. A lot of people are right now looking onto polls like the rabbit onto the snake. That the government sponsored polling institutes are overestimating the FIDESZ share is old news. The others with one exception show a very narrow race, FIDESZ with a slight lead, but one that is way smaller than the margin of error. Saying this there is a huge percentage refusing to answer. I can’t imagine that someone would expect disadvantages to admit to vote for the state party, in fact they are very proud of. Remarkable is the Republikon result that 1/3 of Hungarians in economic active age already thought once about emigration, 28 % would of the population in working age would prefer leaving the country if Orbán remains in power! A poll ordered by the Central European University shows a clear lead of Unity for Hungary. Péter Márki-Zay doesn’t get tired to tell that he has won all elections he was candidate in clearly, while all polls told that he had no chance. Gergely Karácsony used a graphic to show that his 7 % lead in 2019 hasn’t been polled either ►HU, the poll closest to reality showed him at the same level as the former lord mayor Tarlós. FIDESZ has much worse to face than just being in the opposition, so it shouldn’t surprise us that they are in panic mode and claiming everything just to stay in power.
The reaction of Péter Márki-Zay regarding the stories the regime is spreading can be found here ►HU. He searched publicity for stepping to the police to apply for a criminal investigation against the foreign minister. He used his short announcement to call Szijjártó a liar, who wants to influence the elections by fake news, while he also drew the attention to the fact that the entire elections are far from being democratic. In fact he would be happy to meet the president of Ukraine once, he is very much impressed of him, MZP also appreciates the Ukrainian fight against Putin’s army. The least he wants is Hungary bordering to a new Soviet Empire. Instead of cleaning-up within foreign affairs and removing Russian software from the parliament’s computers, where about the Hungarian cyber security says it would be dangerous, Orbán is attacking the EU and serving Putin. Unity for Hungary had contact with Ukrainian authorities, Márki-Zay admitted, because they have handed over an ambulance, bought by donations for Ukraine the opposition collected. He had also a recent copy of the Hungarian Gazette in hands showing a decree allowing transportation of weapons with the destination Ukraine over Hungarian ground and airspace. He reminded that Orbán has voted in Brussels in favour of weapon purchase and transportation.
All these discussions made Lakmusz having a closer look what Unity for Hungary said about the war. Besides the so often repeated incomplete quote of Márki-Zay said before the war, when the entire world was trying to keep Putin away from starting his war, that he would send soldiers into Ukraine together with NATO only, but he wouldn’t see this happening at any time soon, they did only find clear statements of Unity for Hungary against the war ►HU. Neither a commitment to NATO nor the expectations of MZP are of relevance for the regime, calls for peace are outraging Orbán.
However, Magyar Hang has taken a look onto the factual delivery of “deadly weapons” to Ukraine. A comedian took Orbán’s favourite adjective to weapons BTW as opportunity to talk about the question of sending water pistols to Ukraine. In fact Hungary’s share in EU purchase of “deadly weapons” is 3.7 billion Forint (10 million Euro.) This neither Orbán nor Szijjártó mentioned at all ►HU.
The same article takes a look to the energy sanctions Unity for Hungary would enable within the EU directly after the elections according to the regime. In fact there are countries that want this. But Hungary is not alone with rejecting this idea. Germany has already reduced the share of Russian gas from 55 % to 40 % within the 1st month of war. But they have announced the lowest alert of possible energy shortage yesterday regarding the Russian decision to allow only payments in Ruble, while the contracts are closed in Euro. Poland announced that they will end using all Russian energy sources until the end of 2022 ►HU. For the time being the countries will continue purchasing from Russia and regarding the dominance of Russia on the European energy market this is not very surprising. What did Orbán in the meantime? Nothing we would know about. He not even declared in public that the contract about additional deliveries he talked about with Putin in February in Moscow would not be signed.
Voila, the “Council of Judges” (OBT) has already submitted to Orban's "reorganization" by the afternoon. https://obt-jud.hu/sites/default/files/ulesek/Osszefoglalo_2024.11.20.pdf
Putin's spokesman, Peskov: "Freezing the conflict in Ukraine [along the existing frontlines] is UNACCEPTABLE for Russia, it is important for…
According to the 2015 contract, Russia would build the the Paks-2 atomic power plant for 12.5 billion euros, from start…
Current US situation: https://www.cdc.gov/bird-flu/situation-summary/index.html https://www.aphis.usda.gov/livestock-poultry-disease/avian/avian-influenza/hpai-detections/commercial-backyard-flocks
Of course the Foreign Minister is projecting his government’s style of politics onto everyone else, as they can’t be bothered with governing, Fidesz have always been more interested in campaigning and propaganda.
No matter that Ukraine might have other, more important things on its mind at the moment than the Hungarian elections (in Fidesz-land everything is an opportunity for propaganda) and no matter that the country renowned for interfering in other country’s elections is the aggressor Russia, don’t let the facts get in the way of your campaign Peti…
I know there is a huge reluctance in the EU nations to allow Russian news services to have access to the minds of the public due to outright lies and what Trump called fake news. But to be honest during the cold war I can testify that NATO military intelligence read the fake Russian and allied Warsaw Pact news services everyday to help it digest and understand the political line benign communicated to military elites and the masses.
So with that experience in mind missing from today’s post is how Russia is presenting foreign minister Szijjártó’s “tale about a conspiracy between Ukraine and Unity for Hungary” is being presented in Russian media like Interfax, Sputnik, and RT. It is being presented as a conspiracy against nations that simply want peace in Central Europe by a Ukrainian government that is controlled by the USA and NATO. A Ukrainian government that allows the USA to offshore its secret biological weapons programs and is also constantly ready to resume producing nuclear warheads that can be attached to a wide variety of US and EU produced missiles capable of hitting Russia.
This fake news allows Dmitry Peskov Putin’s most direct spokesperson to argue internationally on major news outlets “We have a concept of domestic security and it’s public, you can read all the reasons for nuclear arms to be used, So if it is an existential threat for our country, then [the nuclear arsenal] can be used in accordance with our concept.” Dmitry Peskov said on CNN and something very close on the US Public Broadcasting System’s program the News Hour. While Putin’s main spokesman did not specifically elaborate on what would be deemed an “existential threat,” he repeated unfounded claims on both news programs that Ukraine was trying to build its own nuclear arsenal.
So Szijjártó’s comments actually serve to bolster Putin’s ability to support the use of tactical nuclear weapons against Ukraine. Szijjártó and Orban’s comments are presented to the Russian public and Putin loyalists internationally as part of the evidence of Ukraine being an aggressive nation that seeks to drag peaceful Hungary into a war and presents itself as an existential threat to Russia.
Meanwhile here in the USA we get David Remnick the editor of The New Yorker magazine since 1998 putting out an essay available today titled “What Is Putin Thinking?” https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/04/04/what-is-putin-thinking-russia-ukraine. Basically his argument, that contains absolutely no new information about the current thinking of Putin, is that his illiberalism drives him to want to reestablish a great Russian empire. That in turn drove him to want to seize Ukraine.
But what is interesting in this article is Hungary appears in, and in a very odd way in this passage: “In recent years, Putin has even succeeded in exporting his particular brand of illiberalism to, among others, the National Front, in France; the British National Party; the Jobbik movement, in Hungary; Golden Dawn, in Greece; and the right wing of the Republican Party (in the USA).” Really what Remnick did was look back at articles from several years ago and some stuff from a book he wrote in 2014 titled “Resurrection: The Struggle for a New Russia” that relates to funding links between Jobbik and Russia that appeared in the USA without following what has been happening with the evolution of Jobbik in the context of electoral politics in Hungary. The evolution away from Russian links was also driven by the Kovacs’ spying affair which readers of this blog know well and Remnick seems still not to have digested. The biggest pro-Russian party in Hungary is no longer Jobbik, its Fidesz the ruling party, which is not to say there are not pro-Russian elements still in Jobbik but clearly they are no longer drivers of that party.
Now really the Russian influence inside of Jobbik may be far less than inside the ruling party Fidesz of Orban.
The self-declared Fascist Russian who shaped Putin’s ideology:
Ivan Alexandrovich Ilyin
in Chapter 1
Snyder – the Road to Unfreedom (2018)
https://willzuzak.ca/cl/bookreview/Snyder2018RoadToUnfreedom.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Ilyin
Russian Central Bank.
International Reserves of Russia:
2022.02.18: $643.2
2022.03.25: $604.4 billion, a mere 6.03% decline
Putin:
Western countries will have to open ruble accounts in Russian banks to pay for gas. He added that Russia would consider it a breach of contracts if gas buyers from unfriendly countries refuse to pay for it in rubles.
Putin warned of the threat of massive de-industrialization and job losses in Europe, highlighting the possibility of a new wave of migration from developing countries to Europe.
According to Putin’s decree, the new procedure for paying for Russian gas supplies in rubles will come into force on April 1.
By presidential decree, Gazprombank will open special ruble accounts for foreign gas buyers from unfriendly countries.
Gazprombank will sell foreign currency to be converted into rubles for paying for gas at auctions on the MICEX-RTS.
the Central Bank of the Russian Federation within 10 days will determine the procedure for opening special currency accounts for foreign gas buyers.
Does it mean a forced exchange rate?
Well it does mean Russia is violating contracts if it forces payments in rubles. All of these international gas contracts specify in detail the currency used to pay for them and they were not rubles. One of the most basic issues with functional markets is honoring contracts, Russia is reverting to its communist past by doing this and it will hang over it forever. But it probably reflects the reality of what Putin’s Russia is.
For years I have had a running argument with friends about if either China or Russian were in fact state capitalist societies and not comparable to market economies of the west. In fact Russia is not even a Mafia state or what is sometimes called crony capitalism or even an oligarchic economy (this term has also been applied to the USA by some liberal economists). I do not think honestly the transition from a command communist economy has ever been completed in either China or Russia. Elements of a market economy and private ownership have been layered on top of a command economy. The Chinese still claim to be socialist with Chinese characteristics (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism_with_Chinese_characteristics )
Today’s official rates by the Russian Central Bank
euro/ruble = 92.49
US dollar/ruble = 83.41
Real-time FX rate at this minute (vs closing price on February 23)
euro/ruble = 91.36 (vs 91.85)
US dollar/ruble = 83.30 vs (81.15)
The sanctions do not seem to work !
The text of Putin’s ukaz is here:
https://tass.ru/ekonomika/14243381
1b)
if the payment is not made in time and in rubles, Russia will cut the natural gas supply to the foreign entity.
6)
Foreign gas buyer has to transfer the euros or dollars into a special “K” account of Gazprombank. The bank sells them for rubles before the payment deadline in the Moscow Exchange MICEX – RTS.
Russia forbids the export of sunflower oil and rapeseed oil in April and puts an export tariff on them from May 1 to August 31.
The course of the Ruble doesn’t mean anything. Russians only may exchange in one direction (selling their Euros or Dollars) and the market was small anyway. Although the assets of their central bank in USA and EU are frozen the Russians have enough left to throw currencies onto the market to reach rates they like. In a situation where a small market is further limited no huge amounts are needed to manipulate the course. If the Russian state decides to sell and buy Ruble abroad at course X it will happen. This gives confidence to the Russians, even if they can’t buy the desired products any more. If goods are not imported manipulation of the course becomes even easier….
In a lighter mood:
Istvan, your English is quite good but sometimes you make typical German mistakes
In English it’s not”course” but exchange rate …
As soon as I am able to I will offer to help you with proof reading – I often do that. You can delete this if you want…
Deleted
The Guardian has another scathing article, and yestetday it reported on the stupidest lie claiming Hungary accepted 500 000 refugees to get money from the EU. In reality more than half just transited through…