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Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán appeared concerned by the prospect of Ukraine entering NATO this week, reacting forcefully to comments from Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg saying that the country's "rightful place" is in the bloc.Orbán responded to a Politico article on Stoltenberg's comments, simply exclaiming "What?!"Hungary, under Orbán's leadership, has become something of an outlier among NATO countries in terms of its response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Budapest maintains close ties to Moscow and the country is highly dependent on Russian energy.The country has not provided arms to Ukraine, unlike most of the bloc, Politico reported. The outlet noted...

Samantha Power, the current administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), announced in February 2023 that she was in Budapest, Hungary, to support “democratic institutions” and “civil society.” Hungary, a member of the EU and NATO, has a democratically elected government presently spearheaded by conservative and pro-life Prime Minister Viktor Mihály Orbán, who won reelection to an unprecedented fourth term in a 2022 landslide victory. Notably, Orbán’s government has refrained from backing the U.S.-led strategy to exacerbate the Russia-Ukraine crisis since the latter’s onset in 2022. Additionally, Orbán’s government rejects the globalist principles of open immigration, same-sex marriage,...

The United States on Wednesday imposed sanctions on a Hungary-based bank linked to Russia, marking a new low point in Hungary’s relationship with Washington. The U.S. Treasury Department announced the penalties, which will target the International Investment Bank (IIB), a controversial institution located in Budapest with ties to the Russian state. The bank’s presence in Hungary has drawn the ire of Western officials, who fear it could be used for Russian intelligence operations inside Europe. Speaking to reporters in Budapest on Wednesday afternoon, U.S. Ambassador to Hungary David Pressman said Washington had repeatedly shared information with Hungarian counterparts about how...

After Austria and Hungary, Bulgaria has also joined the minority group of European Union countries that refuse to send weapons to Ukraine, news and opinion portal Mandiner reports [link at URL]. Bulgaria has declared that it will not take part in the EU’s joint ammunition purchase program, nor will it supply fighter jets or tanks to Ukraine, Euronews reports. Bulgarian President Rumen Radev is under enormous pressure from opposition parties, but he has said he stands by his position. ... Although many of its Western allies accuse Hungary of siding with Russia in the war based on its firm stance...

NICOSIA – Nearly a half-century after Turkish invasions seized the northern third of the island – where it keeps some 35,000 troops still – Cyprus’ new President Nicos Christoulides said more will be spent on defense. He said that 2 percent of the Gross Domestic Product of 26.42 billion euros ($28.41 billion) – about 52.8 million euros ($56.77 million) would be spent on the Armed Forces in different areas. That comes as the United States is lifting a decades-long arms embargo that held down Cypriot defense while Turkey was buying American arms without conditions and has a huge military advantage...

The U.S. has reportedly decided not to invite two of its allies to the ‘Summit for Democracy,' which is touted as President Biden’s hallmark foreign policy initiative. The U.S. government is inviting around 120 countries to join its 'Summit for Democracy' next week. But two NATO allies, Turkey and Hungary, aren’t going to get a call. The snub is likely to inflame tensions between the U.S. and its two NATO allies even further. ...

Charges for aiding and abetting the murder of thousands of Hungarians during the Nazi occupation of Hungary during World War II are being prepared by Hungarian prosecutors against 92-year-old Hungarian-American businessman George Soros. According to a source at the prosecutor’s office in Budapest, Hungary, Soros is expected to be charged with “knowingly and willfully” aiding and abetting the murder of Jewish Hungarians in Budapest from September 1942 to January 1943. The government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban has been working to bring historical crimes committed by Hungarian Nazi collaborators to justice, and it is believed that Soros has been using...

There is a proliferation of U.S.-funded, supposedly free journalism organizations and training courses linked to various left-wing opposition newspapers in Hungary, according to the Hungarian civil rights group, Tűzfalcsoprt (Firewall Group). (snip) While the web of supporting organizations has not yet been fully untangled, Hungarian domestic intelligence agencies have already determined that NGOs funded by billionaire oligarch George Soros along with U.S. state and state-linked organizations were involved in funding the opposition’s election campaign. This information was included in the report of the Hungarian domestic intelligence agency, the National Information Center, which was submitted to Hungary’s parliament on Jan. 20,...

Hungary's far-right Prime Minister Viktor Orban snubbed Wednesday's meeting in Warsaw with President Joe Biden and the other Bucharest Nine leaders after insisting Donald Trump was the only person who could broker peace with Vladimir Putin. Orban has been an outlier on the war in Ukraine, chiding the European Union for prolonging the conflict and saying in October that only former U.S. President Donald Trump could negotiate a deal between the Ukrainians and Russians to end the conflict. 'This is going to sound brutal, but hope for peace goes by the name of Donald Trump,' Orban said at the time,...

“When Russia launched its attack, the West didn’t isolate the conflict but elevated it to a pan-European level,” Orban said. “The war in Ukraine is not a conflict between the armies of good and evil, but between two Slavic countries that are fighting against one another. This is their war, not ours.” Under the slogan “Peace and Security,” Orban’s nearly hour-long address focused largely on the conflict in Ukraine, which is approaching its one-year mark, Feb. 24.

The Hungarian government is demanding an apology from the Biden administration after US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield told a high-level UN summit on antisemitism earlier in the month that a vandalized Holocaust memorial honoring Raoul Wallenberg was located in Hungary. Listing recent antisemitic incidents – including a Molotov cocktail being thrown at a synagogue in New Jersey, a Russian missile hitting a synagogue in Ukraine, and a Jewish cemetery being vandalized with a swastika – Thomas-Greenfield told the ‘High-Level Side Event on Globalizing Efforts to Combat Antisemitism’ that a “Holocaust memorial was vandalized in Hungary,” Breitbart reported....

It's never a good thing when Samantha Power says she's in town, and ready to help:Great to be here in Budapest with @USAmbHungary where @USAID just relaunched new, locally-driven initiatives to help independent media thrive and reach new audiences, take on corruption and increase civic engagement. pic.twitter.com/xeMgRulU0J — Samantha Power (@PowerUSAID) February 9, 2023 "Locally driven initiatives". Right. According to a US Embassy press release, here's why the USAID Administrator was here: I remind you that Hungary is a democratic country that is a member of the European Union and the NATO alliance. It is led by a government that...

Smack-Down! Hungary Pushes Back Against Obnoxious US Ambassador written by daniel mcadams saturday february 4, 2023 undefined US Ambassador to Hungary David Pressman and his husband. Biden's Ambassador to Hungary, David Pressman, is a particularly odious specimen in a long line of obnoxious US residents of Szabadság tér since the end of Hungary's subjection to Soviet control in 1989. Before him, Soap Opera producer and Obama glamor-queen moneybags Coleen Bell warned Hungarians in 2016 to get on board with the destruction of Syria or face the wrath of DC. Secretary of State Tony Blinken's own father, Donald, did the Clinton...

President Biden’s plan to sell F-16 fighter jets to Turkey faced another potential roadblock on Thursday when 27 U.S. senators, most of them Democrats, informed him in a letter that if Ankara does not stop blocking Sweden and Finland’s entry into NATO, Congress will not support the sale. “Congress cannot consider future support for Türkiye, including the sale of F-16 fighter jets, until Türkiye completes ratification of the accession protocols [for the two countries’ admission into NATO],” wrote the senators. Sweden and Finland last year applied to join the transatlantic alliance, jettisoning long-held neutrality in response to the Russian invasion....

Hungary has proposed to nominate Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for the Nobel Peace Prize, said Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Hungary, Peter Szijjarto during today's press conference with Turkish FM Mevlut Cavushoglu, Trend reports. Within this context, the efforts of the Turkish President peace between Ukraine and Russia were particularly noted...

Austria and Hungary have agreed not to send military assistance to Ukraine, Austrian Defense Minister Klaudia Tanner and her Hungarian counterpart Kristof Szalay-Bobrovniczky said at a meeting in Budapest on Jan. 30, cited by Euractiv.According to the top officials, both countries' position regarding Russia's war against Ukraine is "clear" as they don't provide Ukraine with defense assistance "to prevent a further escalation."Szalay-Bobrovniczky added that Hungary would only supply humanitarian aid to Ukrainian refugees fleeing the war.President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video address on Jan. 29 that it is important for Ukraine to continue receiving military support from partners at...

Hungary expects Ukrainian leaders to make every effort to stop the attacks and atrocities suffered by ethnic Hungarians, Tamas Menczer, the foreign ministry state secretary for external relations, said on public radio on Friday. Menczer reacted to reports that Hungarian flags and signs have been removed in Mukachevo district (Munkacs), in western Ukraine, and the director of a local Hungarian school, Istvan Schink, was sacked. Before the war, “the ethnic Hungarian community was being stripped of their rights”, he said, citing measures that restricted the use of their mother tongue and education in Hungarian.

In November the EU proposed to give impoverished Ukraine — with over 80% of its nation without electricity, among other necessities — $18.6 billion in critical humanitarian aid, including support for energy and healthcare facilities.But Hungary has vetoed the transfer of the critical aid package.Budapest has stood out as the only member of the 27 country organization to block the EU package, with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban having effective veto power because EU budget rules require the unanimous approval of all 27 member countries.American and European officials have been noting Orban's "persistent pattern" of obstructionism in aid to Ukraine,...

The UN General Assembly this week passed a resolution to characterize the founding of the modern state of Israel in 1948 as a “catastrophe,” in what has been heralded as a major victory for pro-Palestinian activists. The word “Nakba,” which means catastrophe or disaster in Arabic, was also a term coined by the Palestinians to commemorate the Jewish state’s founding. The UN resolution acknowledges the Palestinian version of the events that led to Israel’s creation, and calls for the “commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the Nakba,” with a “high-level event” at the global body on May 15th, 2023. May...

The Romanian Foreign Affairs Ministry released a statement expressing its disapproval after Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban wore a scarf featuring a map of "Greater Hungary" during a match between Hungary and Greece. The map included a piece of Transylvania within Hungarian borders. The Foreign Affairs Ministry conveyed its “firm disapproval” of Orban’s gesture to the Hungarian ambassador in Bucharest, noting that the PM’s “attitude is in contrast with the atmosphere of openness that defined the relaunching of bilateral dialogue” between Romania and Hungary. “Any revisionist manifestation, regardless of the form it takes, is unacceptable, contrary to the current realities...