It doesn't seem hard to find a fitting label for the people you mention. How about "Western League For Demolition…
A Time-Delayed Debate
Yesterday I covered mostly an interview with Péter Márki-Zay on the underground channel of Partizán covering Putin’s war. A few hours later Viktor Orbán gave an interview on state TV pretty much on the same topic. If you watched both you have the unique chance to have at least a kind of debate between both candidates, although the PM had the chance to know the answers in advance. Yesterday I have added remarks with my observations, today I will do as well – fair is fair.
About the style I made yesterday a remark that Péter Márki-Zay has got used too much to the Hungarian way of interviewing, where the PM gives a statement only without a journalist doing his work, to insist on an answer and to enquire further if a politician is just creating hot air bubbles instead of giving information. I am convinced that delivering a message must be possible in an interview, but questions are also part of the right the audience has to get informed. On Partizán good journalism took place, on M1 exactly the bad style happened. Orbán was served by Tünde Volf-Nagy, an MTVA employee (I want to avoid the term journalist, as this is not journalism,) this was no interview. The details:
What is the obligation of a responsible acting government, when in a neighbour country is war? Orbán: This is the 3rd war since I became PM of Hungary. One day after we became member of NATO they decided about the invasion during the war between Serbia and the Albanians. Also then was a situation that there was war in the neighbourhood and we were dragged in. Later in 2015 the 1st Ukraine-Russian war took place about Crimea. And now the 2nd Ukraine-Russian war is going on. And in all these conflicts it was and is my point of view Hungary has to keep out of the fighting. Remark: Putting this “experience” on table is comparing oranges and apples. In 1999 Serb continued their in other parts of the former Yugoslavia started genocide in the Serb province Kosovo. This was no war between Albania or Albanians and Serbia, it was an internal Serb conflict! Serb citizens were murdering Serb citizens. And in Crimea the Russian army never showed Russian marks, the “green men” were Russian soldiers combating illegally and unofficially. His “experience” is no point on Orbán’s side, instead he shows that he is completely incapable of understanding the situation.
You said after the NATO meeting that Hungary mustn’t be dragged into the war. That raises 2 questions. How would it be possible to be dragged into such a war and who would have the interest to be? When a war situation begins the sphere is that kind of disturbance, nervous rushing, fast taking steps. The more as the closer a country is. What we need is what we call “strategic calmness.” Ill thought out actions must be prohibited, as for example the call of the left to send soldiers into the war zone. Also it mustn’t be rushed with sending weapons. Weapons we might need to our own protection. We mustn’t forget that in Transcarpathia Hungarians are living and as during the Southern Slavic wars there lived Hungarians in that areas, in all directions Hungary must be kept out of war. Remark: Repeating a lie doesn’t change it into truth. Nobody called for Hungarian soldiers to be sent into the war zone. Before Putin started the war MZP was asked if he would send soldiers and he said that this would need to be the decision of NATO. Orbán said the day before he appeared on TV the same, that defence is done with NATO. NATO soldiers prohibiting war to break out mustn’t be mentioned by Márki-Zay, but Orbán may do so.
Germany always said not to deliver weapons and yesterday evening [February 26th] they changed course and decided to deliver. Would you change your mind as well? We can’t change our point of view, because we have no weapons we could deliver. We need all our weapons to put them along our Eastern border. We have no time to talk about in what sorrow state we took over the Hungarian arm production, right now we are building the needed factories. We don’t want, but even couldn’t give weapons away. Remark: Now it is starting to be funny. A state doesn’t need to produce arms to deliver them. Germany released American products for export to Ukraine as well and allowed Estonia to deliver howitzers they bought from Germany. And if there is no market for Hungarian weapons, why should they be produced?
And about rearming there were critics who asked why are we buying so many weapons? We were preparing for peace. If you think back we had the last 12 years the red mud catastrophe, thereafter the flooding, thereafter the 1st Ukraine-Russian war, thereafter immigration, thereafter the pandemic, and now the 2nd Ukraine-Russian war. One doesn’t need to be a nuclear scientist to understand that the next decade is about security. It perhaps should have been started earlier, but the situation was so bad with FOREX loans, low pensions, low wages, we hadn’t enough money to start everything at once. Remark: All hot air bubbles, no answer on the question. How can weapons hinder the breach of a dam? Or stop rain? The annexation of Ukraine had shown – again – that Putin mustn’t be trusted, but his name wasn’t used at all, also that Russian bombing in Syria made the refugees move to Europe in 2015, refugees that really didn’t want to become immigrants in Hungary. The purchase power of pensions went down, the one of wages stagnated and seen today’s inflation I personally expect a reduction of purchase power of wages for 2022 as well. And the FOREX loans were pushed by Orbán himself. This question has not been answered, but Ms Volf-Nagy decided not to act as a journalist.
On German Deutschlandfunk the MTVA employee listened to a report about the friendly welcome the people gave to refugees arriving now to Hungary, while the government was hateful against those coming from Syria. Orbán answered that again one doesn’t need to be a nuclear scientist to understand that the Muslim masses arriving for a better life and those refugees arriving from war must be differentiated. Who doesn’t see this difference doesn’t see anything in international security politics. Helping those refugees from war without having an alternative, regardless who went wrong in the conflict, is a Christian obligation. Remark: I needn’t to be Christian to understand that Christianity is not about passports. Who has no idea about international politics here is Orbán, who neither understood that Hungary is not the only Western neighbour of Ukraine, nor that the Putin was and is bombing both Aleppo and Kiev. And there are alternatives from going to Hungary today as well. Orbán didn’t even try to heat his air bubbles.
Ms Volf-Nagy praised the hospitality the refugees got from government, civil organisations, and individuals. How does it come? Orbán: Good country where good people live. Remark: This is the point where it becomes hard for me to go on, if the situation wouldn’t be so sad I’d regard it as a failed comedy show. It is so far away from a serious interview!
About the sanctions and the press reports that Hungary could veto the MTVA employee wanted a statement. Orbán said that sanctions are useless, they’d never help. But this is not the time to be slimmer. We mustn’t show that we are more intelligent, but show that we are united. We sustain everything, all other news are misinformation. He told the foreign minister to be clear about the Hungarian point of view and that people mustn’t become victims of misinformation. Remark: M1 allowed Spöttle to report about the Ukraine attack on Russia. So Orbán went to the best place for misinformation within Hungary, where he himself produced lies, as we have seen above.
But there was news that Hungary vetoed the SWIFT ban. Orbán: A lie, misinformation, elegantly said fake news, Hungarian a lie. Remark: Is the best friend of the Orbán regime within the EU, the Polish PM, a liar? My question, the MTVA employee didn’t want to know that.
What is the danger not to separate information for misinformation? War on information is important, I tell the left and my foreign colleagues that it is important who says what. At the end we Hungarians mustn’t pay for the war. Paks 2 and all energy questions must be kept out of the sanctions, otherwise we will pay for the war. Remark: While it is true that all sanctions will have an effect on us as well, the price of Paks 2 was too high from the very beginning. Production costs for electricity was in the beginning calculated by the state owned owner company to be slightly more expensive than today’s consumer price in the all-day-tariff including line charges, 27 % VAT and so on is. In this case sanctions might be the cheapest way out of this trap.
It was said that energy connected items were heavily discussed, how did it happen that it went off the sanction list? Orbán stated that he would never had vetoed, but told that this would have been very bad for Hungary. This why energy is not on the list. Remark: And they all lived happily everafter.
Do you see any danger for the delivery of Russian gas as recently agreed on and for the overhead cut? Is not effected, will not be effected, and the to be elected PM will definitely not effect it. Remark: Goebbels would have fired both at this time, the “journalist” and Orbán. Only our taxes are a guarantee for the overhead cut, otherwise it could never be financed.
What did you see when you went to the border yesterday? I didn’t hear the war, but everybody knows about that the front is approaching in the direction of the Hungarian border. So we have to be very quiet in the next weeks, when the war will wage in Transcarpathia. I saw how women had pushed prams, but also that our mayors in the region, police and disaster recovery units presented a Christian country. Remark: No sounds of war at the border? Anyone a map for Orbán and Volf-Nagy?
Since 2015 Hungary protects the outer borders for a lot of money. Will there be any help from Brussels now? We live in an absurd situation. When we were confronted with the huge amount of Muslim refugees Brussels hasn’t given any financial assistance, although we didn’t only protect our border, but also the inner countries of Europe, mainly the German territory. But also they didn’t help. Only on the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia we could rely. Of course they were unable to give money, but they sent at least policemen. Now all countries at the Eastern border get money, Hungary don’t get anything, we can’t rely on Brussels, and we only can rely on ourselves. The only we can rely on is NATO, because they need us because of our border, where all where all tensions are concentrated. Remark: Where to begin? Here is what the EU has done for the protection of Hungarian borders ►HU. Frontex is the relevant EU authority Orbán may call in case he needs assistance. The EU is preparing help for refugees from Ukraine, that within the few days not everything has been decided about already Orbán should know, he is long enough participating in the council. And again please a map! Not only Hungary has as NATO state a border to Ukraine, 4 share a border with Ukraine. Ours is with 103 pretty short compared to those of Poland and Romania, only the border of Slovakia to Ukraine is 5 km shorter than ours is.
And Orbán’s message to Hungarians: It is war. And to tell the truth: This will affect our lives. We must now act responsibly. We must take decisions to remain out of the conflict and to chose sanctions that don’t harm us.
My impression of this appearance was that there was a politician who had difficulties in having his say. Besides that he always speaks slowly, at least in recent years, Orbán had difficulties to present himself as the decided PM he wants to be. Although being handled softly by a submissive employee Orbán breathed through many times before telling a word. The name Putin was not used, Russia was only present in the rare expressions of 1st and 2nd Ukraine-Russian war, which sounds to me as if Ukraine attacked Russia, as if we would talk about the Polish-German war instead of about the German invasion of Poland in 1939. I saw a man incapable holding up his own narratives, and where he tried he obviously lied. Orbán was hardly able to answer the “questions” he gave Ms Volf-Nagy and he would have had no chance against a real interviewer as Marton Gyulás, Orbán revealed the very sorrow state of our prime minister. At the end I didn’t get any additional information from this “interview” it was repeating the usual platitudes we know from the regime propaganda press.
And beyond Orbán on TV: sanctions returned to Hungary as well. The 27 branches of Sberbank Zrt remain closed today and tomorrow, the Hungarian central bank decided. The Hungarian Sberbank is owned by the Sberbank Europe AG, seated in Vienna, a daughter of the state owned Russian Sberbank, under ban of the EU sanctions. Also the Austrian bank regulating service FMA has ordered the bank to remain closed for 2 days. The authorities want to archive 2 things, to prevent a run onto the deposits and to decide how to realise the consequences of the sanctions.
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You are very astute and to the point!
Because of the obvious self-contradictive and abstract nature of Orbán’s argumentation, further exposure and repeated questioning of the sanity and reach of Orbán’s active policy of cooperation with Putin, would probably be a very effective campaign strategy for the opposition – with Orbán doing most of the work by himself.
Nice job.
We need really Finkelstein sort of short posts.
Logic, charisma, finesse.
Thanks for the post today.
It seems the Viktor is already delivering. But tries to keep it secret. I am sure the Dutch had big fun putting the picture online.
https://hvg.hu/itthon/20220228_mi_hazank_papa_katonai_repulo_oroszorszag_ukrajna_raketa_akna_tavcsoves_fegyver
First off I want to say this is one of the best posts I have seen on this blog and again represents a lot of work. As you know I read the Fidesz press regularly and even watch Hir Tv, which to be honest gets to the point even faster on the issues Orban wants to emphasize. But lately I have also been reading the Ukrainian English language on line news kyivindependent,com which is excellent and honest a is possible I think, and of course many US based publications including military related ones. But I have to admit even when reading the Russian RT news I do not see consistently such bullshit as I read in Magyar Nemzet in particular about Péter Márki-Zay who is consistently being characterized as “confused, irresponsible,” which poses a huge risk for Hungary’s security in given crisis of war in Ukraine.
Now let’s be pretty clear here, not sending weapons to Ukraine no longer makes it any less likely that Hungary will be hit by a tactical or strategic nuclear weapon by the Russians. Putin now has placed his nuclear forces publicly on a hair trigger, and the USA and NATO countries that possess similar weapons are not talking about whether or not we have raised their preparations for launching a nuclear war against Russia in the case of a detected attack in Europe or the continental USA. MZP has correctly raised the issue of whether or not Orban is an outright traitor to Europe and NATO and has now said Orban basically at one moment he is a traitor and at another moment can be a cautious supporter of NATO. I think that objectively is correct, but he discusses this in a rather informal manner during media interviews and in facebook posts without more formal policy papers issued by the United opposition. I thought our host discussed MZP’s informal approach very well in today’s post.
The US military, keeps our land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), on a high state of readiness at all times, and it is believed that Russian submarine-based nuclear missiles, like America’s, are similarly postured. The French nuclear forces appear to be similarly postured as are the British. I would suspect that NATO fighter bombers that are assigned to carry nuclear tipped cruise missiles that travel low into Russia to their programed targets are now prepared for near immediate launch inside of hardened bunkers. So all this crying by Fidesz increasing the danger for Hungary by his statements is just absurd,
Hungary as a NATO nation is and has been targeted by Russian preprogramed ICBMs for years more than likely. The problem now is that the doctrine of mutually assured destruction (MAD) has been abandoned ideologically and rhetorically by Putin. This was also done periodically in a pubic way by former US President Trump, who seemed to believe we could launch nuclear missiles at North Korea or China somehow avoiding the effective destruction of the earth.
Actually the USA on July 25, 1980, with US President Jimmy Carter‘s adoption of countervailing strategy with Presidential Directive 59 that was in fact a top secret document until 2013 (see https://www.archives.gov/files/declassification/iscap/pdf/2011-064-doc36.pdf ). The “countervailing strategy” stressed that the planned response to a Soviet attack was no longer to bomb Soviet population centers and cities primarily, but first to kill the Soviet leadership, then attack military targets, in the hope of a Soviet surrender before total destruction of the Soviet Union (and the United States).
This radically modified version of MAD was seen as a winnable nuclear war, while still maintaining the possibility of assured destruction for at least one party. I was actually briefed on this change while still in the US Army reserves at a conference on strategy and it was greeted happily and endorsed by the US military hierarchy. But we never saw the actual document issued by President Carter. This policy was further developed by the Reagan administration with the announcement of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI, nicknamed “Star Wars”), the goal of which was to develop space-based technology to destroy Soviet missiles before they reached the United States. Russia post transition claimed to believe in the MAD doctrine but the USA no longer did, but it has become rather obvious even before Putin’s latest utterances about nuclear war that the MAD doctrine had been abandoned and the Russian attempt to develop Hypersonic missiles carrying nuclear warheads was an obvious attempt to develop the possibly of a survivable first strike.
Fidesz and Orban know full well there is no protection for Hungary by trying not to offend Russia, Hungary’s very membership in NATO makes it a target for Putin.I pray this madness does not accelerate the consequences for the literal survival of our planet are at stake.
If we look today at the situation in the war by the Russians in Ukraine we can now clearly see indications that the Russians are shifting to a more destructive approach of targeting civilian areas, a northern neighborhood of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, came under shelling by multiple-rocket launchers on Monday, according to witnesses and video footage from the area. The extent of civilian casualties wasn’t immediately known, but there were fatalities, Ukrainian officials said. Most military commentators have expected this to happen, as I said this type of transition to what I call a total siege on Ukraine’s population centers has been done many times and in many wars by many countries including my own.
As is always the case the military be it Russian, US, North Vietnamese, frames these attacks as being due to their opponents placing legitimate military targets in largely civilian areas. In the Battle of An Lộc in Vietnam in 1972 that i participated in as a military adviser to the South Vietnamese Army the town was leveled essentially by People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) artillery and tank fire with all civilians still in the town. Because the war had caused so many South Vietnamese to move into cities it was also profoundly overcrowded. The Battle lasted for 66 days and I was involved for about 50 of those days having been brought in by combat helicopter under fire from Saigon to help with what is technically called counter battery fire from South Vietnamese artillery because of the complex nature of targeting PAVN artillery using multiple sources of intelligence, even directional sound detection equipment. In total the PAVN lost in this battle alone up to 10,000 soldiers many of whom were killed with 15,000 wounded by combined air and artillery strikes, in the city of An Lộc probably 5,000 South Vietnamese troops were killed and a totally unrecorded number of civilians were also killed.
From my own experience what is coming to Kyiv could be hell on earth, I pray some sort of peace deal can be made. There is no glory in this type of warfare no matter what is being put out in the media by either Ukraine or Russia.
This article appeared early this morning Central Standard time in he USA https://kyivindependent.com/national/sources-belarus-to-join-russias-war-on-ukraine-within-hours/ The article indicated that as difficult as it is to be believed there are indications Belarus will commit paratroop to the war and actually attempt a combat air drop. Since the US Army’s 82nd Airborne is currently in Poland I am pretty sure its intelligence will be watching this carefully and expecting a major fiasco if it happens.
Causality rates for combat air drops are usually very high and risky. Too bad Aleksandr Lukashenko isn’t heroically jumping into battle, I am sure he would deeply inspire his boys. As an admission I had to combat jump in training serval times while in the Army, I vomited once, I pissed myself once too narrowly missing a tree. I am sure Lukashenko would love it. It is totally different than the sport of sky diving where there are big open landing areas and things like artillery are not also falling from the sky sitting on giant inflatable skids that could crush you.
This article https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/02/27/world/russia-ukraine-war/satellite-images-show-large-unit-of-russian-troops-near-kyiv shows the massive line of Russian heavy tanks, artillery, rocket launchers, and infantry on the roads heading Kyiv. It supposedly stretches for three miles.
Judging by the last elections and how people demonstrated on the streets in 2020-2021, even if Lukashenko still gathers some support from voters, one can wonder if Belarusians would be happy to see their army go fight Putin’s war in Ukraine. I sure would love the irony of seeing Belarus overthrow its dictator and switch to democracy.
Another question is why Russia that has been planning this invasion for months if not years needs all of sudden additional reinforcements? It does look like Putin miscalculated the whole military operation and its political and economic consequences?
Russia has a long tradition of distributing the dirty work among less central players.
The black list of Russian entities was published by EU this afternoon.
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32022R0336&from=EN
This list consists of 26 people and 1 company only.
These 26 people are added to the 21 blacklisted people from 2014.
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32014R0269&from=FI
I think the West must get real. 26 plus 21? What about the thousands who should hang?
Don’t worry!
I don’t but I just wondered
This is 1 decision only. Yesterday alone the EU published 6 different regulations! Alone 351 members of Russian Duma are sanctioned, plus the number of high profile individuals you linked. Of course many sanctions are not personally, but connected to many different trades. Besides these actions there are decisions that are not subject of EU law, but just co-ordinated by EU, these decisions the member states have to carry out. So your observation is correct about high profile individuals, including those who spoke out against Putin’s war now or started crying life on TV, when his Italian villa was seized. But much more happens as well.
Linguistical note.
Distinction lost in a sloppy translation ….
российский, російський (adjective),
россиян, росіян (noun) = oroszországi =
= Russian (someone of any ethnicity from the current Russian state, Russian Federation)
русский, руський (adjective and noun) = orosz =
= Russian (an ethnic Russian from Russia, Ukraine, from any state)
12:23
“Liosha, why haven’t you answered so long.
Are you still at the military drill?”
14:16
“Mama, I’m no longer in Crimea. No drills.”
14:33
“Where are you then???
Papa asks if we can send you a package”
14:38
“Forget about the package, mom.
I just want to hang myself [вздернуться]
14:47
“Why do you speak such thing? What happened?”
14:50
“Mom, I’m in Ukraine. There is real war here.
I’m scared, we shoot [херачим] at everyone, even peaceful people. Everyone. We were told they would welcome us but they’re throwing themselves under our vehicles and don’t let us move on. They call us fascists. Mama, it’s very hard for me.”
The glass of the cell phone is shattered….
https://t.me/polkazov/3852
Senator Chris Murphy, CT on twitter:
“Just leaving classified briefing on Ukraine crisis. A few takeaways that I can share:
1/ Confirmation that the Russians have fallen behind their timeline. Ukrainian resistance has been fierce and there have been multiple Russian equipment and logistics failures.
2/ DoD and DHS are pressing hard for Congress to end the continuing resolution and get a budget passed. There is no way for our national security agencies to be nimble enough to support Ukraine if they are operating on the 2020/21 budget.
3/ The ability to keep supply lines running to Ukraine remains alive, but Russia will try to encircle and cut off Kiev in the next several weeks. The fight for Kiev will be long and bloody and Ukrainians are rapidly preparing for street to street combat.
4/ The U.S. and allies are coordinating to not only freeze the assets of Putin and his oligarch allies, but to seize those assets as well. This is likely a further step than Putin’s inner circle anticipated.”
https://twitter.com/ChrisMurphyCT/status/1498477863804313600
„Hungary Defends Transit of Russian Military Goods to Serbia“ 2019https://www.voanews.com/a/europe_hungary-defends-transit-russian-military-goods-serbia/6172991.html
„Western support for Ukraine
Orban does not want to let arms shipments through Hungary“ 2022
https://www.stuttgarter-zeitung.de/inhalt.unterstuetzung-des-westens-fuer-die-ukraine-orban-will-keine-waffenlieferungen-durch-ungarn-lassen.e3bbf868-21ca-4ac6-ac3f-45418350887a.html
😀