LOS ANGELES.–Hungary’s 61-year-old President Viktor Orban congratulated 78-year-old President Donald Trump for his efforts to bring peace to Ukraine. Orban thinks that Trump plans will bring down energy prices in Europe, helping to stimulate the Hungarian and other EU economies. Orban said Trump’s approach reverses former President Joe Biden’s, 82, belligerent approach to the U.S. and EU’s bad attitude to the Russian Federation. Unlike other EU countries, Orban sees Trump making a major paradigm shift from one of hostility to one of friendly cooperation with the Kremlin. Orban welcomed Trump’s foreign policy approach thinking it will be good for Hungary and the EU. Orban thinks Trump’s approach toward the Kremlin would welcome Putin back to the G7 and G20, from which he was evicted after the Feb. 24, 2022 Ukraine invasion.
Orban has been an outlier in the EU, refusing to go along with an outright boycott of Russian goods and services. Brussels would never give up Hungary’s $212.4 billion GDP, small by other EU standards but still a contribution to the EU’s total $20.29 trillion GDP. When the U.K. left the EU Jan. 20, 2020, the EU lost $3.4 trillion in GDP wealth. EU officials tolerate Orban, even though he’s been one of the lone voices calling for reconciliation with the Kremlin. “If the America President makes peace, if an agreement is made, I think Russia will be reintegrated into the world economy, reintegrated into the European security system, and even European energy,” Orban said, agreeing with Trump’s approach to Ukraine and Moscow. “This will give the Hungarian economy a huge boost. It’s a big opportunity. We gain a lot in peace,” Orban said, disputing Zelensky’s hostile attitude toward Moscow.
Orban praised Trump for seeking peace with the Kremlin, something he’s tried to do over the last three years while Ukraine prosecuted its war with the Kremlin. U.S. and EU officials blamed Putin from the Feb. 24, 2022 invasion, when, in fact, Putin tried to discuss new security arrangements for Ukraine for months before the invasion. Biden ignored all of Putin’s overtures prompting him to implement his “special military operation” designed to demilitarize Ukraine from receiving dangerous levels of U.S. weapons. Biden thought nothing of defying the Kremlin to supply Ukraine with unlimited cash and lethal weapons leading up the invasion. Biden called the invasion “unprovoked and unjustified” but clearly Putin asked Biden to stop arming Ukraine for months before he took military action. If Trump were president, no war invasion would have happened because Trump would not have armed Ukraine.
U.S. and EU fake news like to blame Orban for making excuses for Putin, when all he wants are normal diplomatic relations. As long as the U.S. and EU supply cash-and-weapons to Ukraine to fund proxy war with the Kremlin, normal diplomatic relations cannot resume. Brussels hasn’t yet pivoted, like Orban, to a new U.S. president and reality that Trump no longer supports proxy war with the Kremlin. “The United States has initiated a change that puts the whole Western world’s system of arguments, value system, and way of thinking on a new track,” Orban said. “This process is progressing much faster that many people though. We call this the Trump tornado,” Orban said, a bigger supporter of Trump policies. Zelensky still thinks he can gaslight the EU into thinking Putin has his sights of conquering other EU countries. Zelensky offers no proof other that Ukraine.
Uraine’s mess started under former Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko when the pro-Western Maiden Revolution chased the Kremlin-backed Kiev government of Viktor Yanukovych out of power Feb. 22, 2014. Putin responded quickly annexing the Crimean Peninsula March 1, 2014, home to Russia’s Black Sea fleet. Separatist movements in Donetsk and Luhansk also started with new war front with Ukraine cracking down on Russian-speaking enclaves in Ukraine’s industrial Donbas region. What’s so ironic is that Putin offered Zelensky in March 22, on two weeks after the invasion, a way to settle conflict. Putin asked Ukraine’s 47-year-old President Volodymyr Zelensky to recognize Russian sovereignty over Crimea and independence for Donetsk and Luhansk. Zelensky rejected Putin’s offer and went to war with the Kremlin, resulting in three years of losses.
Orban wants to see Trump move swiftly ahead with his peace plans with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Zelensky keeps saying the Ukraine and the EU must have a seat at any peace table. Yet Zelensky and the EU have insulted Putin to the point that they have no rapport with the Kremlin. Trump’s Nov. 5, 2024 victory was the beginning of a new foreign policy that rejected Biden’s belligerent approach toward the Kremlin. Biden was the only U.S. president to go to war with Russia since WW II. Trump wants to restore normal U.S.-Russian relations to once again work together on important global problems as partners, not enemies. “I personally became convinced in 2010, 2011 that the European Union was done for,” Orban said. Orban believes that Trump could save the EU from its current downward spiral, all built off misguided antagonism toward Putin and the Kremlin.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
