Tag Archives: Ukraine

Response to the “institutionalized terrorism” of Belarus

Yesterday, while I was writing my piece on the Hungarian media’s first couple of reactions to the Belarusian hijacking of a Ryanair flight from Athens to Vilnius, the European Council with astonishing speed unanimously decided to condemn and sanction Belarus for institutionalized terrorism. Under false pretenses, Belarusian authorities demanded that the plane make an emergency landing in Minsk in order to remove and arrest Raman Pratasevich, an opponent of Alexander Lukashenko, who had earlier sought and received political asylum in Lithuania.

In my recent blog post titled “Viktor Orbán’s infatuation with his EU veto power,” I called attention to some of the Orbán vetoes that served only the interests of Hungary’s new friends. He blocked united action by EU member states in condemning the use of force by Russian law enforcement against protesters and did the same when the European Union wanted to express its dismay over China’s disregard for democracy in Hong Kong. EU politicians, such as German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, found this particular veto “absolutely incomprehensible.” But Orbán ignored the signs of annoyance and again used his veto power to prevent the EU from sending a balanced statement on the Israeli-Occupied Palestinian Territories conflict, urging the two sides to end the fighting. Patience was running out. Orbán was, for the first time, explicitly reminded that the EU’s foreign and security policy is “not some whim, but a mandate from the EU treaties that all member states contribute loyally to the common policy,” by which he should abide.

After these recent warnings, I couldn’t quite imagine that Viktor Orbán would again contravene a most likely otherwise unanimous decision on the Belarusian case. On the other hand, upon his arrival in Brussels, Orbán talked exclusively about the environment and climate change, although it was clear that the question of the Belarusian hijacking would be uppermost on the minds of the European heads of state. Foreign Minister Szijjártó was equally silent, although the other Visegrád 4 countries expressed their disapprobation of the Belarusian outrageous behavior. Not only was Poland up in arms, but the Belarusian chargé in Bratislava was obliged to pay a visit to the Slovak Foreign Ministry. Romania’s foreign minister, Bogdan Aurescu, also called in the Belarusian ambassador and “demanded an international investigation” of the hijacking.

Opinion pieces that appeared in the independent media were clearly in favor of a forceful response against the Belarusian dictator who, after all, had hijacked a plane traveling between two EU cities. As Gergő Illés wrote in Azonnali, all autocrats are watching Brussels at the moment. Will the European Commission do something about the notorious unanimous decisions required in foreign policy issues? He dubbed the meeting, which at that point hadn’t yet taken its final stand, “the matriculation exam” of the European Council. If it keeps “being concerned,” it will have failed for good.

Well, it didn’t fail after all, mostly because of the strong condemnation of the Belarusian incident by the EU leadership. For example, Charles Michel, president of the European Council, declared that “the European Union will not tolerate ‘Russian roulette’ with the lives of innocent citizens.” Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said that the hijacking of the Ryanair flight was “an attack on European sovereignty, democracy, and freedom of expression.” Angela Merkel’s first comment after the incident was that “Roman Pratasevich must be immediately released… The same applies to his partner, Sofia Sapega. This is what we will demand.” These strong words showed that something had snapped. Viktor Orbán, Lukashenko’s best friend in the European Union, had to take notice. If Lukashenko is not tolerated outside of the Union, neither will Orbán be inside of it.

These unusually tough comments must have inspired the Orbán government to join the choir in condemning the Belarusian act of terrorism against a plane flying between EU capitals. Szijjártó, while visiting Dublin today, expressed his delight that “the EU has finally acted swiftly, decisively, with sufficient vigor and unity on this issue.” According to Telex, this insincere sentence was uttered in the presence of the “public media,” which most likely means that only the reporters of the Hungarian state television and radio were present, who probably had traveled with the foreign minister to be on hand for an interview. Otherwise, it is impossible to imagine that he would dare to utter these lines to an international crowd of reporters because they know that Hungary has had an exceptionally close relationship with Lukashenko and, in fact, tried to lessen certain parts of the EU sanctions against Belarus.

Magyar Nemzet followed suit and gave a detailed list of sanctions against Belarus so far. Ten airlines, including the Hungarian Wizz Air, announced that they would not fly through Belarusian airspace. In addition, Ukraine cancelled all flights between Ukraine and Belarus, a decision that has far-reaching negative consequences for the whole post-Soviet region. Apparently, prior to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, 325,000 flights used the country’s airspace per year, which meant an annual income of $50 to 70 million for the country. The airlines’ boycott seems solid. A recent map on Flightradar24 shows practically no flights crossing Belarusian airspace.

The relationship between Latvia and Belarus has also become strained. Riga and Minsk were supposed to co-host the world ice hockey championship currently in progress (May 21 to June 6), but, back in February, Minsk’s right to hold the games was withdrawn for security reasons. And, after the Ryanair hijacking, Riga took down the Soviet-type flag of Lukashenko and replaced it with the historic white-red-white flag of the country, the symbol of the opposition. Belarus then sent the whole Latvian ambassadorial staff packing, promptly followed by a reciprocal move by Latvia.

At least for the time being, Hungary is signing onto the joint EU actions without any reservations. But we know only too well that Viktor Orbán doesn’t like to change course, especially when it means retreat. Therefore, there is always the possibility that his withdrawal is only temporary and that, soon enough, he will come up with a new pro-Lukashenko strategy.

May 25, 2021

Zsolt Bayer: “Blinken is in a hurry”

Yesterday afternoon, I received one of the circular e-mails that reach me every time my friends in Hungary happen upon something that is even more outrageous than the everyday surprises the Orbán government serves us. This time they called my attention to a new Zsolt Bayer article that appeared in Magyar Nemzet yesterday and urged me to translate it. It was a response to a video interview that Tony Blinken, U.S. Secretary of State, gave to Telex. Blinken gave similar interviews to independent newspapers in eight countries: Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Turkey, China, Egypt, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, and Hungary.

The anti-Semitic overtones of the article are obvious, which should not surprise readers of Hungarian Spectrum, who are only too familiar with Bayer’s blatant anti-Semitism. The description of Tony Blinken as both a rootless Hungarian and a rootless American is a typical anti-Semitic topos, which until now was not used in semi-official narratives.

Bayer is described as a close confidant of Viktor Orbán, who in 2016 received the Knight Cross of the Hungarian Order of Merit. Outrage followed. Of the 111 opposing recipients, 16 auctioned off their award and 66 sent their knight crosses back to the prime minister’s office. 

Zsolt Bayer is no ordinary journalist. Here he is seated between Viktor Orbán and Gergely Gulyás on a recent photo.

This afternoon I sat down with the Hungarian original and began the arduous task of trying to translate Bayer’s peculiar writing style when suddenly I realized that Magyar Nemzet was so proud of this hateful diatribe that they had already translated it not just into English but also into German and French. So, what should I do now? I thought that the article, which illuminates the Hungarian government’s current views on the United States and Russia, should be made available to those who are unlikely to turn to Magyar Nemzet for information and that therefore I should republish it. But then I took a more careful look at the translation and concluded that it was so bad that it could not appear in Hungarian Spectrum. So, what follows is my translation that, I hope, is an improvement over the one provided by Magyar Nemzet.

I also shortened the article by leaving out the first four paragraphs, which had no relevance to the main theme. It was a long invective against gays, the Black Lives Matter movement, test tube babies, and those who worry too much about the future of the earth. All this was necessary to explain why “unfortunately we have no time to answer the American secretary of state, who, similarly to many of his predecessors, looks upon himself as a governor who sends a message to the colonies.” But, as we will see, he answers Tony Blinken anyway.

Since Bayer is writing for a Hungarian audience, there are several references that might not be easily understandable to non-Hungarian readers. One such allusion is Regős Bendegúz, a movie character in a 1980 television movie called “Indul a bakterház” (Rascal of the Railroad Shack), whose lines still captivate Hungarians. See a collection of them in 24.hu. The Firewall Group is the internet site of unknown far-right writers whose favorite pastime is to spread misinformation. The recent story about Hunter Biden teaching a course at Tulane University on “fake news” is false. He will be an unpaid guest speaker in a course on media polarization.

♦ ♦ ♦

In a word, we have so many urgent things that we don’t even have time to be jealous of Regős Bendegúz, who, back in the day, wisely said: “I never had anything urgent in my life, yet even so, I ran so much that it was too much.”

And unfortunately, we don’t have time either to answer the American Secretary who, like so many of his predecessors, pictures himself as the governor who sends a message to the colonies and tells them how to do things.

So, there should be a “free and independent” press here, isn’t it so, Mr. Blinken, because, as you said the other day so wisely, “a diversity of voices, diversity of independent opinions, that is the fabric of democracy. We certainly urge the government of Hungary to promote an open media environment.”

Understood. So now, all we want to know is what exactly an “open media environment” looks like. We ask, could CNN be a good example for us out here in the wilderness of Asia? Because, if so, let me quote for Mr. Secretary the conclusions – which all of us here in Hungary are well aware of – from the Firewall Group (Tűzfalcsoport) –“One of CNN’s executives spoke openly about the company’s inside secrets, its strategic left-wing commitment and defamation of the right. Among other things, he revealed that the narrative of the BLM movement is determined by central command, they try to make US President Joe Biden appear athletic and fit, and they are even preparing for the reports following the coronavirus which will most likely cover global warming because ‘they need the fear-inspiring content.’ But the head of CNN also discussed the art of manipulation, revealing how they try to influence public opinion.”

Of course, his lowest point was openly saying that, essentially, it is thanks to CNN that Republican ex-President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. We couldn’t find a better example of left-wing terror ourselves: when sensitive footage of CNN was published, social media sites (Facebook and Twitter) banned journalists who exposed the left-wing news channel.

Incidentally, a recording was leaked last year from the channel where, in the last moments of the US presidential race, CNN leadership was convincing the editorial staff to negatively portray Trump’s coronavirus condition. In another recording, CNN’s president Jeff Zucker asks for the suspected corruption cases of Biden’s son to be silenced.

We understand that, and we are familiar with it! Biden the “athletic” gentleman who falls on his dentures three times. In olden times, Comrade Brezhnev, who was mounted on “brackets,” was also one of these athletic guys. But the peak performance of the “open media environment” was not that but rather the complete silence in connection with Biden and his son in Ukraine, with the additional attempt to dump the whole affair on Trump. We wrote in our paper the other day, for the umpteenth time, that “Hunter Biden’s name came to the forefront of international media interest in the final days of last year’s US presidential campaign after the conservative New York Post published documents allegedly from the US President’s son’s laptop that provided further evidence of his corrupt activity in Ukraine. The email exposed by the newspaper showed that Hunter Biden had introduced his father, then vice president to Barack Obama, to the top executives of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma a year earlier; later, abusing his position, Biden Sr. put pressure on Ukrainian government officials to fire the State Prosecutor investigating the Burisma case.

Another scandal stemmed from this case as Facebook, Twitter, and the mainstream left-wing media did everything they could to prevent the documents published by The New York Post from appearing or spreading on social media.

Just to be clear: Daddy Biden, as vice president to Obama, put his own son on the board of the largest Ukrainian energy company, and then, as vice president of the United States, put pressure on the Ukrainian government to fire the State Prosecutor investigating the energy company’s corruption cases.

They fired the State Prosecutor.

Then a committee was assembled to examine how Trump put pressure on the Ukrainians. Meanwhile, CNN and everyone else was occupied with making sure that the Bidens’ Ukrainian affairs stayed hidden from the public.

So far, this is all like some run of the mill soap opera, isn’t it? But the best is left to last. It was reported recently that “US President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, who was mixed up in last year’s corruption scandal, will be giving a ten-week-long course on fake news as a guest professor at Tulane University in New Orleans.”

I just love your “open media environment,” Mr. Secretary of State!

And I am so impressed that you are urging us to do the same. But you should know something: we work differently. I’ll explain and you’ll understand in a minute. Back then, being “anti-Soviet” was one of the biggest sins that could be committed. If you were “anti-Soviet” or were labeled one, well, you could be in real trouble. Losing your job, being discriminated against, or, in the worst case, going to prison. Well, we were anti-Soviet and held the U.S. as a model back when our Soviet friends called you an “imperialist-capitalist-colonizing” power where “they beat the Negroes.”

The situation has changed by now. The greatest friends of the Soviet Union in those days and their pitiful descendants are some of America’s best friends and the most vocal about their hatred of Russia. Today, anti-Americanism (and anti-Brusselsism) is a cardinal sin, and those who remain silent or refuse to be enthusiastic in their hatred of Russia can chew their fists in shame.

And look what happened. We’ve started hating you and loving the Russians. Now, tell me, Mr. Secretary, how can that be?

Naturally, there is a reason for this too. After all, you are behaving like the Soviets did back then; you speak of your own amazing and unparalleled grandeur, justice, superiority, democracy, and “open media environment,” like Brezhnev’s comrades at the time. And in Hungary there is a never-changing political mass that knows exactly whom they should hate and whom they should love. They are never wrong, Mr. Secretary – even woken up in the middle of the night, they know which ass to kiss. And that’s exactly why you like these people, and you’ll soon be sending your mercenaries here with Nuland at the helm to support these people in the election campaign.

Mr. Secretary, this is what you’re good at. “Exporting democracy.” And yes, you have so many successes in your global missions: Afghanistan, Iraq, and the incredible Arab Spring, oh and Ukraine too and the Euromaidan “revolution” on which you reportedly spent billions of dollars. Just, why on earth would CIA agents get dressed up on both ends of the square to fire a couple of shots into the crowd? You became the inverted King Midas: whatever gold you touch turns to shit.

And lest we forget, let’s mention why it’s obligatory to hate the Russians. Because you found a ton of shale gas. It’s a good product, just very expensive to extract. American companies have accumulated insane amounts of debt extracting shale gas, which has to be sold at a high price by all means. The Russians have cheap gas, and Europe buys it; the Germans are even building a separate pipeline for their gas. Well, this can’t be! What will happen to the expensive American shale gas that has to be chugged across the ocean in enormous tankers to the European terminals, burning hundreds of thousands of gallons of diesel per hour? But no problem, because Biden will host Greta Thunberg and CNN will report on environmental efforts with a tearful performance.

Well, that’s why we have to hate the Russians. Because a Eurasian collaboration would simply put an end to your crumbling, silly, foolish, and softened realm where universities debate racist soap dispensers and BLM activists plunder cities in the memory of a criminal. (By the way, was Navalny, the big warrior, trained by you or the Germans? Or perhaps both?)

In any case, Mr. Secretary, it’s good that you know that we know; in fact, we are all too familiar with your lot. We know for example that you will always have the intelligence service and “open media environment” capacity to silence and potentially imprison those who are not anti-Russian or liberal enough. Tzuckerhere will always be enough “corruption cases,” “sexual harassment,” “adultery” that you will “uncover”; but if Clinton ever visited Jeffrey Epstein’s island, well, we’ll never know. In fact, when Monica Lewinsky was playing the flute in the Oval Office, and Clinton denied it, then your own Supreme Court ruled that oral sex doesn’t constitute sex and thus is not adultery.

It’s good to be with you, Mr. Blinken… But you should learn for life the eternal validity of a saying of a learned colleague of mine: the world will always be built by imperfect conservatives and will always be fucked up by perfect liberals.

In conclusion, allow for a correction. It is customary to mention in Hungary that you have “Hungarian roots.” I would like to make this clear, Mr. Secretary. You are just as completely a ROOTLESS Hungarian as you are a rootless American.

That’s exactly why your world is doomed. It’s unfortunate. And if I quoted Regős Bendegúz at the beginning, let’s close with his words as well: “I was always a well-intentioned kid, but when I got to the end of my intentions, they became bad.”

If I am well-intentioned, this is what I think of you. Less and less often.

May 2, 2021

The Russian plan to blow up a Czech ammunition depot may have been directed from Budapest

The 2014 Czech explosion scandal is rapidly expanding. Yesterday, demonstrations were held in front of the Russian Embassy in Prague over the alleged Russian involvement in the explosions at an ammunition depot in Vrbětice in 2014. Soon after, the government announced its hope for support and solidarity on the part of the European Union and its NATO allies. Thus, as Szabad Európa remarked yesterday, “the Czech spy scandal has become an EU-wide issue.”

My first piece on the affair ended by wondering whether Hungary would join Slovakia and Poland in supporting the Czech Republic, as requested by the government of Viktor Orbán’s friend Andrej Babiš. In vain does one look for any sign of a Hungarian response to the Czech call on the Orbán government’s website, but the Polish government placed the following announcement on their own: “We, the Foreign Ministers of the Visegrád Group, condemn all activities aimed at threatening the security of sovereign states and its citizens. We stand ready to further strengthen our resilience against subversive actions at both the national level and together with our NATO allies and within the EU. The Foreign Ministers of Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary express solidarity with recent steps taken by our close partner, ally, and neighbor, Czechia.”

According to Paraméter, a Hungarian-language Slovak internet news site, it was Slovak Foreign Minister Ivan Korčok who initiated the V4’s joint declaration. Admittedly, it is somewhat worrisome that the alleged perpetrator of the action is not mentioned by name. But the very fact that Hungary signed this short document is a step in the right direction.

If the Hungarian government failed to reveal its solidarity with steps taken against Russia on its website, what did they say to their domestic audience about this affair? On April 19, after a lengthy description of Hungarian complaints about Ukraine’s unfair treatment of its Hungarian minority, Péter Szijjártó said that “Hungary expressed its solidarity with Poland over the arrest of the leader of the Polish national community in Belarus and with the Czech Republic over its diplomatic conflict with Russia.” He added that “Hungary knows exactly what it is like when the rights of a national community are violated, as the Hungarians of Transcarpathia are also confronted with such an attitude.” Thus, the statement of solidarity with the Czech Republic became subordinate to a declaration of support for Poland as it responded to an act against its ethnic minority in Belarus. Russian criminal activities abroad merited only a few words and were reduced to a “diplomatic conflict.” It is true that MTI summarized the content of the document, but Magyar Nemzet simply said that the Polish, Hungarian, and Slovak foreign ministers “condemn all activities that threaten the security of sovereign states and their inhabitants.”

Expelling 18 Russian diplomats from the Czech Republic was a very strong response to the revelations of Russian involvement in the explosions. Past experience suggested that the “aggrieved” partner would “outdo” the original slight. And indeed, in no time, 20 Czech diplomats had to leave Moscow within 24 hours. That meant that the Czech Embassy would be left practically unattended. Perhaps because of the Russian response, Prime Minister Babiš tried to appease the Russians by saying that “Russia did not attack the Czech Republic but the goods of a Bulgarian arms dealer who was probably selling these arms to parties fighting Russia.” Opposition politicians, however, were not in the mood to mollify the Russians, and thus Babiš was forced to retreat.

Bulgarian-Russian affairs are not in the best of shape either. In March, Bulgaria expelled two Russian diplomats accused of spying after Bulgarian prosecutors indicted six people, including current and former military intelligence officers, for spying for Russia. According to Bulgarian authorities, the spy network passed classified information to the Russian embassy in Sofia about Bulgaria, NATO, and the European Union. Given the already strained relations between the two countries, it is not surprising that Ekatrina Zahavieva, Bulgaria’s foreign minister, expressed full solidarity with the Czech Republic against the violation of its national sovereignty by Russia. This was pretty much expected considering that the ammunition stored in Vrbětice belonged to a Bulgarian arms dealer whom the Russian agents subsequently tried to poison in order to prevent the shipment of arms and ammunition to Ukraine. Zahavieva also expressed “full solidarity with Ukraine over Russia’s dangerous escalation of tension at its borders in recent weeks, [which] is absolutely unacceptable.” Long gone is the traditional friendship between Bulgaria and Russia.

There is no question that Slovakia will stand by the Czechs. As Foreign Minister Korčok put it, “we will decide in such a way that there is no doubt where the Slovak Republic stands” on that issue. At the same time, he saw “an opportunity to develop a clear position within the V4 on the situation in which the Czech Republic has found itself.”

International opposition to Russian aggression and the brazen activities of the GRU, the foreign military intelligence agency of the Russian Armed Forces, in Great Britain and countries of the European Union will make it difficult for the Orbán government to stand by Vladimir Putin’s Russia. This is especially the case since in the last few hours further details emerged, thanks to the joint work of Bell¿ngcat, Respekt, The Insider, and Der Spiegel, which puts Budapest at the center of a six-man Russian operation.

Map provided by Bell¿ngcat

The operation was apparently organized and directed by two highly placed operatives, Alexey Kapinos and Evgeniy Kalinin, who under their own names but with diplomatic passports landed in Budapest, allegedly carrying mail to the Russian Embassy. Kalinin is assumed to have been supervising agents Anatoliy Chepiga and Alexander Mishkin. It was these two who most likely masterminded the attack in the Czech Republic.

The investigation is far from finished; more revelations are promised.

April 20, 2021

Will Hungary stand by the Czech Republic against Russia?

An international bombshell exploded yesterday in Prague when Prime Minister Andrej Babiš announced the expulsion of 18 Russian diplomats from the country “on well-founded suspicions that Russian intelligence agents were involved in explosions at an ammunition depot in Vrbětice in October and December 2014.” He claimed to have “clear evidence,” collected by the Czech intelligence and security services, that the Russian group, known as Unit 29155, had been involved in the explosions.

It was this group that was implicated in the attempted assassination of Sergei Skripal, a former Russian spy, and his daughter Yulia. British authorities eventually identified the two Russian agents as Anatoliy Chepiga and Alexander Mishkin, who also appear to be responsible for the two explosions in the Czech Republic.

Within minutes of the announcement, a chill reminiscent of the Cold War years settled on the already frosty relations between the West and Russia. For good measure, the Czech minister of industry announced that “it is very unlikely that Russia’s Rosatom will take part in building a new nuclear power plant in the Czech Republic as concerns of Russian intelligence activities are growing.”

Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in an interview that“Western partners sought to override the importance and topicality of information released by both Russia and Belarus about not simply a plot but an actual plan of a constitutional coup,” referring to recent news of the Russian arrest of two men who were allegedly preparing to overthrow the Belarus government and kill President Alexander Lukashenko. The Russians accused the Czech government of total subservience to American interests. It was further stated that “this hostile move was the continuation of a series of anti-Russian actions undertaken by the Czech Republic in recent years. It’s hard not to see the American influence in the country.”

Babiš immediately got in touch with Charles Michel, president of the European Council, and Jan Hamáček, acting foreign minister, tweeted that the issue will be discussed at a meeting of EU foreign ministers tomorrow. Babiš asked for the solidarity of his allies. The United States, Great Britain, and Poland have already assured Prague of their support. A NATO official told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that “we support our NATO ally, the Czech Republic, as it tackles and investigates Russia’s malign activities on its territory.”

The Czech weekly Respekt published a long article on the Russian agents allegedly responsible for the explosions and claimed that the attack was carried out “to stop a shipment of weapons to Ukraine.” The Czech police are certain that, although the two men entered the territory of the Czech Republic under aliases, they were actually the same Anatoliy Chepiga and Alexander Mishkin who wanted to kill Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, England on March 4, 2018.

Arms dealers can visit the depot in Vrbětice as long as they state their purpose ahead of time in an e-mail. The e-mail the two Russians submitted, however, was “stripped of all metadata,” so it was impossible to determine where it was sent from. They entered the Czech Republic under one set of aliases and introduced themselves under another.

The way the Czech police have reconstructed the story, the Russian aim, with the explosions, was to prevent Czech ammunition from being delivered to a Bulgarian arms dealer, who was supplying arms to the Ukrainian army fighting Russian forces. To completely stop the flow of weapons from Bulgaria to Ukraine, the arms dealer was supposed to be killed by a third Russian agent operating under the alias of Sergey Fedotov. As Bell¿ngcat, a British investigative journalism website that specializes in fact-checking and open-sourced intelligence, uncovered, Fedotov arrived in Bulgaria on April 24, 2015, with a return flight to Moscow scheduled for April 30th. However, he showed up at Istanbul’s Atatürk Airport on April 28th, where he bought a last-minute ticket back to Moscow. Earlier that day, Emilian Gebrev, an arms dealer, was hospitalized after collapsing at a reception. Eventually, he recovered, but a month later “Fedotov” was back in Bulgaria and Gebrev fell ill again. The Ukrainian internet site Unian agrees with the hypothesis of the Czech police that the attempts on Gebrev’s life were related to his supplying defense-related equipment to Ukraine.

How did the Fidesz propaganda machine handle this rather delicate matter? MTI sent four reports from Prague and Warsaw, which were incoherent, perhaps because of the editing that is routinely done in Budapest. Origo so far has published three articles on the topic, two of which were about the Russian response. Demokrata was surprisingly candid, admitting that Babiš asked for solidarity among the allies of the Czech Republic, which naturally includes Hungary. It also reported on Warsaw’s support for Prague. Pesti Srácok even went so far as to talk about the likelihood of Rosatom’s exclusion from the tender for the Dukovany Power Plant. The article, bypassing MTI, went to the original source and quoted Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Industry and Trade Karel Havlíček, who called attention to “the risks of inviting Russian and Chinese companies, which have been highlighted by Czech intelligence services. Any such act, if proven, must clearly have consequences.” Magyar Nemzet simply stated that 18 Russian diplomats had been expelled because, “according to the Czech authorities, they worked for the Russian secret service.”

I can imagine the anxiety that must have gripped the Hungarian Foreign Ministry and the Prime Minister’s Office in the face of a situation that cannot end in a truly satisfactory manner from the Hungarian point of view. What  would satisfy both the Czechs and the Poles (as well as the Americans), on the one hand, and Russia on the other? Perhaps Viktor Orbán, who looks upon himself as an exceptionally talented diplomat, will find some miraculous way of getting out of this mess. Or perhaps the time has arrived when Orbán will have to show his cards. He either declares his allegiance and support of his allies or he sides with Russia’s 80,000 soldiers amassed at the eastern border with Ukraine and in Crimea.

April 18, 2021

A new era in Hungarian-Ukrainian relations?

My very first article, published while I was still a graduate student, was on the nationality policy of the Hungarian Soviet Republic, which also covered the Transcarpathian region today called Zakarpattia Oblast. In this part of Greater Hungary, just as in other parts of the country, the Károlyi government tried to appease the nationalities by agreeing to the establishment of autonomous national territories. Most of the nationalities, like the Romanians and the Slovaks, refused to negotiate with Budapest, but in this northeastern corner of the country there were three different “national councils,” each having a different future in mind for the region. One group wanted to remain with Hungary, the second planned to join the new Czechoslovakia, and the third opted for the temporarily independent Ukraine. In the end, the area ended up with Czechoslovakia. The decision was made at the Paris Peace Conference.

The Transcarpathian Ukrainians were called in Hungarian “ruszinok” or “ruthénok” and were considered to be a separate ethnic and linguistic group. Their official designation was “ruthén,” according to the 1910 Hungarian census. I was somewhat surprised to see that this old designation is still in use in Hungary today. In 1991, the Antall government gave official recognition to the Rusyns as one of the recognized minority groups living in Hungary. As far as their internet presence is concerned, the Rusyn self-government has been dormant since 2008.

Once I became aware of the Hungarian recognition of Rusyns as an ethnic minority, however dormant they may be, a Ukrainian linguist’s remark that originally made no sense to me suddenly gained meaning. In the midst of the fierce Ukrainian-Hungarian debate over the language question, a member of the Ukrainian Constitutional Court asked a linguist whether “the appearance of languages like Rusyn in the [language] law can be interpreted as a termination of Ukraine’s territorial integrity.” The linguist’s short answer was “without a doubt.” In the last few years, Ukrainians became paranoid over the language issue. For example, the director of the Ukrainian Institute of Linguistics insisted that the CIA is directly involved in declaring Rusyn a distinct language. The debate about the classification of Rusyn is far from settled, but one thing is certain: Ukrainians don’t recognize it as a separate language and are suspicious of those, like Hungarian scholars, who think otherwise.

Of course, the linguist’s answer is far-fetched, but unfortunately Viktor Orbán is suspected both in Europe and Ukraine of being Putin’s Trojan horse. The Ukrainian language law’s true aim is to curb the further spread of Russian in favor of the official language of the country, but it also means that Romanian, Polish, and Hungarian schools will have to teach most subjects in Ukrainian from grade 6 on.

Discussions between Ukraine and Hungary, initiated by the United States in 2018 and 2019, broke down, and the mutual recrimination led to Hungary’s blocking Ukraine’s new special NATO status on October 20, 2019. The veto came, as media at the time noted, “hours before a Russian state visit to Budapest.” Szijjártó said that “Hungary won’t surrender the Transcarpathian Hungarian community to geopolitics.” The bad relations between the two countries escalated. Ukraine accused Viktor Orbán of lending a helping hand to Putin and of endangering Ukraine’s territorial integrity. The Hungarian side naturally denied such intentions, but Hungarian politicians were frequent visitors in the region, especially during election time. Although Ukrainian law forbids foreign nationals from taking part in election campaigns, Hungarian politicians actively campaigned, urging Hungarians to vote for the head of the Hungarian minority. The Ukrainians answered in kind, until it resembled an uncivilized shouting match between the neighbors.

Szabad Európa recently published two articles on the Ukrainian-Hungarian language controversy. In the first piece, the author pointed out that Hungarian schools are so substandard that they would need serious attention and improvements to reach even the also low scholastic achievements of the Ukrainian students. Moreover, Hungarian youngsters do not read and speak Ukrainian well. People familiar with the region report that Ukrainian Hungarians live in a separate little Hungary. They can listen to Hungarian television, and they even set their clocks an hour early. Under these circumstances, their poor knowledge of Ukrainian is not surprising. Some people think that forcing these children to study most subjects in Ukrainian will result in the further deterioration of their scholastic achievement. Instead, the experts say, Ukrainian should be taught as a foreign language. I’m not sure what the best solution is. I had some experience with students who graduated from so-called bilingual schools in the United States, which were designed to address the linguistic problems facing Spanish-speaking students in Spanish enclaves, and they ended up not knowing either language well.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian determination to force Ukrainian to be truly a national language got to the point that, as of last week, Ukrainian is the only accepted language outside of the home. In practice this means that every conversation in a store between the cashier and the customer must be conducted in Ukrainian. The only exception is if, by mutual agreement, the two parties opt to use another language. So, in some of the villages and towns in Transcarpathia, two Hungarians would have to start their conversation in Ukrainian and then agree to continue their transaction in their mother tongue.

Ukrainian folk costumes in Zakarpattia Oblast

As all this is going on, the head of the Kárpátaljai Magyarok Kulturális Szövetsége (Cultural Association of Hungarians in Transcarpathia) has been charged with treason, and he is under close supervision. The Ukrainian authorities even took his phone away.

It is under these circumstances that Foreign Minister Szijjártó is visiting Kiev to meet his Ukrainian colleague, Dmitro Kuleba. Considering the events leading up this point, the tone of the meeting was unusually warm and friendly. Kuleba expressed his gratitude that Szijjártó accepted his invitation, adding that “today they negotiated as partners and friends who are looking for solutions.” Szijjártó was also effusive when he stressed that his government looks upon the Hungarian community in Ukraine as “a resource for cooperation and good relations between the two nations.” He added that he “agreed with Dmitro that we must make Transcarpathia our common success story.”

So, what happened all of a sudden? As I indicated earlier, I wouldn’t be surprised to see an early rapprochement between the two countries in the wake of Joe Biden’s election as U.S. president. Although Viktor Orbán’s propaganda machine kept insisting that Donald Trump would be victorious, the prime minister knew better and decided to initiate talks with Kiev before he would have to do so under pressure from Washington.

January 27, 2021

Awaiting a new era in U.S.-Hungarian relations

Yesterday afternoon, János Avar, a keen commentator on U.S. politics, with years of experience as the Magyar Nemzet correspondent in Washington (back when Magyar Nemzet was best newspaper in Hungary), published an opinion piece in Hírklikk titled “Are we declaring war on the United States?” He wrote that it looked “as if Orbán’s media workers were competing with one another about which one of them can utter nastier and ruder remarks about the forthcoming Biden administration and which one of them can express greater horror over the situation in the United States which exists, for the most part, in their imagination…. Why is Viktor Orbán determined to become Donald Trump’s last henchman?”

I wouldn’t be surprised if Avar had in mind an Ádám Topolánszky piece, which appeared in Magyar Nemzet the day before, when composing his op-ed piece. In it, Topolánszky, presumably writing from Florida, insists that with the Biden presidency an Orwellian dystopia will arrive in the United States. We will witness lies, scaremongering, and punishment. In this new world, the Democratic Party will be Big Brother; the media, the FBI, and the big tech companies will be the Thought Police, who will all speak the artificial language Newspeak. All that horror will be directed from the White House under the effective supervision of Vice President Kamala Harris, while President Biden will be nothing more than “a visual element.” Patriotism will be the “casus belli” in this new world, which will be under “centralized communicational and cultural dictatorship.”

Today, at last, Viktor Orbán sent a note to The Honorable Mr. Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. in which he congratulated the 46th president of the United States and sent his best wishes on the occasion of his inauguration. But then Orbán went on to laud “the past four years, [which] have proved that friendly and mutually beneficial cooperation between the USA and Hungary holds great potential in many areas” and expressed his hope that these fruitful relations will continue because “the Hungarian Government remains fully committed to further fostering Hungarian-U.S. relations on the basis of mutual respect and goodwill.”

The Hungarian pro-Orbán press, however, is decidedly downbeat. The first report from Brussels by Tamara Judi, Magyar Nemzet’s correspondent there, reflects the likely fears of the Orbán government when it comes to the anticipated cozy future relations between the new Biden administration and the European Union. The “undisguised” joy expressed by top EU politicians, like Charles Michel, president of the European Council, and Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, and its possible implications for the right-wing Polish and Hungarian regimes is obviously something that worries Viktor Orbán. Another troubling remark came from Manfred Weber, who expressed his belief that “when visiting Europe, Biden should not first visit individual member states but should speak at a sitting of the European Parliament directly elected by Europeans.” That must have given chills to such fierce promoters of the nation state as Orbán. On the other hand, Judi was happy to report, at the end of her piece, that Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s former acting chief of staff and U.S. envoy for Northern Ireland until he resigned on January 6 in protest over Trump’s role in the storming of the Capitol, said that “Europe’s relationship with the United States will never be the same again.” So, the liberals shouldn’t get their hopes up too high.

Now let’s see what an anonymous article that appeared in Origo titled “What can the world and Hungary expect in the coming years” has to say about the future. The article deals at length with the economic consequences of Biden’s policies and predicts the collapse of stock markets, high inflation, and the loss of jobs in the gas and oil industries. What is more interesting than this doomsday scenario for the U.S. economy, however, is the article’s analysis of Biden’s foreign policy initiatives. The Orbán regime has been expecting that the Biden administration will continue the anti-Chinese policies of Donald Trump. But, given the good relationship between Trump’s Washington and Budapest, Orbán didn’t have to face serious U.S. disapproval of the warm friendship between Hungary and China. This situation will most likely change.

It is likely, the article continues, that Washington will demand cooperation from its allies when it comes to a common policy toward Russia and China. In addition, what worries the present Hungarian regime is “the two other fronts where the United States and Russia might clash, Belarus and Ukraine.” According to the article, Trump recognized that “one mustn’t create an opaque civil-war-like situation” in Belarus, similar to that in Ukraine. But Biden “wholeheartedly supports the removal of Lukashenko,” whereas for Russia “Minsk is a strategic partner and one of its most important allies.” If the United States gets involved in Belarus, “it is equal to a declaration of war” against Russia. The same is true about Ukraine, with the added complication of Hunter Biden’s questionable business dealings in that country.

The article ends with an unusually frank description of Hungarian foreign policy vis-à-vis Ukraine. “Hungary currently is vetoing rapprochement between NATO and Ukraine, trying to ensure that the Ukrainians respect the rights of the Hungarian minority. Biden, on the other hand, could launch serious political attacks as he wants by all means to get the Ukrainians to join NATO.”

Finally, there is the question of the European Union. The Hungarian fear is that “the new direction” will be strongly felt in the EU. Radical left and liberal voices can now be spread with an “American tailwind.” In addition, the pro-immigration forces in Europe “will find partners in Biden.” The author predicts that Hungary will be the target of U.S. attacks because “from now on, anyone who doesn’t toe the ideological line dreamt up by the left can expect an attack not only from Brussels but also from the United States.” This is exactly the scenario the Hungarian opposition to Orbán has been hoping for. Now, we will see how many of these hopes will materialize.

January 20, 2021

Viktor Orbán, Russia’s Trojan horse in Europe

I have written many times about Ukrainian-Hungarian relations over the 13 years of Hungarian Spectrum’s existence, especially since 2014 when Viktor Orbán appointed the 35-year-old Péter Szijjártó to head the ministry of foreign affairs and trade. Between 2010 and 2014, during the tenure of Foreign Minister János Martonyi, Hungary was on the side of Ukraine, advocating a peaceful resolution of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and condemning Putin’s aggression against the country.

All that changed when Viktor Orbán became preoccupied with the small Hungarian national minority in the Zakarpattia Oblast, the westernmost part of Ukraine. This sudden interest in the region most likely wasn’t independent of Russia’s occupation of the Crimea. The suspicion lingers to this day that Orbán had his eye on a small strip of land in Ukraine, bordering on Hungary, where Hungarians are in the majority.

As a result of Orbán’s newfound preoccupation, Kiev became wary of Hungary’s intentions, especially since Russian sources revealed that it was László Kövér, the speaker of the Hungarian parliament, who approached the Russians with the idea of cooperation between the two countries in defense of the rights of the Russian and Hungarian minorities. Naturally, the Hungarian government denied the accuracy of the intelligence coming from Russia, but the Hungarian government’s rigid approach to the controversial Ukrainian language law of 2017 has certainly served Russian interests.

Ukrainian-Hungarian relations are again at a low point. The Ukrainian foreign minister, Dmitro Kuleba, accuses the Hungarian government of interfering in Ukraine’s municipal elections, which were held on October 25. I should add that this is not the first time that the Ukrainian government has accused Hungary of meddling in the country’s affairs. A similar situation occurred in the July 2019 presidential election when Hungarian government officials, including Péter Szijjártó, campaigned for a Hungarian, László Brenzovics/Vasyl Ivanovych Brenzovych of Verkhovna Rada, who was running for a seat in the Ukrainian parliament. Brenzovics, by the way, lost.

The Hungarian government maintains that, according to the constitution, it is responsible for the fate of Hungarians living outside the borders, and therefore Budapest promotes their efforts to preserve their national identity. The Hungarian government also has the right to “enforce individual and communal rights of Hungarian nationals to establish local governments.” In any case, the Hungarian official in question, Undersecretary Árpád János Potápi, who has been in charge of national policy since 2014, didn’t visit the Subcarpathian region because of the election but “as part of his regular visits” to the region. Moreover, he has every right to campaign for Hungarian candidates.

The Ukrainian government contends that campaign activities by Hungarian government officials constitute interference in the domestic affairs of the country. As early as October 20, five days before the election, the Ukrainian foreign ministry made it clear that it finds the presence of Hungarian government officials in Zakarpattia Oblast during the election campaign objectionable. It accused Budapest of “political agitation” and promised that “it will do its utmost to respond to such cases in the strongest terms.” Earlier official requests to cease and desist were ignored, “which proves that the Hungarian side has some secret goal that is unacceptable from the point of view of interstate relations,” Kiev insisted.

The Hungarian officials obviously were not moved because six days later, a day after the election, the Ukrainian foreign ministry released another statement. It complained about “direct campaigning” for the Society of Hungarian Culture of Zakarpattia (KMKSZ) and reiterated its statement that the ministry is “deeply upset” over Budapest’s “brazen interference in the internal affairs of Ukraine.” The Ukrainians also objected to Péter Szijjártó’s Facebook messages, which included words of congratulations to KMKSZ on its strong showing, which will ensure a robust presence in the Zakarpattia Oblast Council. He expressed satisfaction over the success of Zoltán Babják/Babiak, who retained his position as mayor of Berehove/Beregszász. Soon afterward, Ukraine prohibited the entry of two unnamed Hungarian officials. Potápi thinks that he is one of the two. He sarcastically added that “they are still looking for the other one.” The Hungarian ambassador to Ukraine, István Íjgyártó, was called into the foreign ministry, where he was handed a note of protest.

At first glance, all this might strike the outsider as petty stuff, but Ukrainian sensitivity, annoyance, and suspicion is understandable. Hungary, because of its objection to the Ukrainian language law, which will not be introduced until 2023, blocked Ukraine’s new special NATO status on October 30, 2019. The veto came, as media at the time noted, “hours before a Russian state visit to Budapest.” Szijjártó said at the time that “Hungary won’t surrender the Transcarpathian Hungarian community to geopolitics.” Although both NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and the U.S. State Department tried to convince their ally, Viktor Orbán, about the importance of the issue, the Hungarian government would not relent. Obviously, maintaining his relationship with Putin was more important to the Hungarian prime minister than cooperating with his NATO allies and Donald Trump’s State Department.

Péter Szijjártó en route to Algiers

It looks as if the Hungarian government, on the anniversary of its first veto, is planning something similar. A casually dressed Szijjártó, on his way to Algiers, released a video on his Facebook page in which he called Ukraine’s decision to bar the entry of two Hungarian officials over what it called meddling in the local election “pathetic and nonsense.” By denying entry to the Hungarian officials, “Ukraine sends the message … that it has given up on Hungarian support for its Euro-Atlantic integration efforts.” He elaborated on his threat by saying that Ukrainians know only too well that they need the understanding and support of all member states, both in the EU and NATO. In brief, if you don’t play ball, you will never be a member of either NATO or the European Union.

Such recurring incidents should make both the European Union and the United States realize the danger that a Russian Trojan horse poses to the western world.

October 27, 2020