why viktor orban is increasingly talking about negotiations between russia and ukraine. why does he need the role of a peacemaker and can the european union stop the hungarian prime minister. we talk about the orbán factor in today's edition of the bbc. i am olga polamaryuk. despite full solidarity with ukraine and its unconditional support, there is someone in europe who in every way inhibits and consistently criticizes military aid to kyiv. hungarian prime minister viktor orban. it was he who cautiously condemned russia's invasion of ukraine in 2022, while avoiding criticism of vladimir putin. last december, viktor orban blocked 50 billion euros of aid to ukraine and proudly spoke about it in brussels. then, however, the money was unblocked. and remember this moment during. the new

president of argentina, then volodymyr zelenskyy asked orbán to name at least one reason why hungary is blocking ukraine on its way to the eu. orbán met putin in beijing, their handshake was later criticized by european leaders, and only after 2 15 years of war did orbán visit kyiv. in the last few weeks viktor orban traveled a lot kyiv, moscow, beijing, and then the nato summit in washington and a meeting with donald trump in florida. why does the hungarian prime minister have the role of a peacemaker, we will try to figure it out later, but for now we will remember what these peacekeeping trips looked like. the so-called peace mission of viktor orbán caused a lot of controversy around the world, it all started with the fact that the largest eu military aid to ukraine unexpectedly came to kyiv with, as he noted, a peaceful visit. this happened until the day after hungary began its presidency of the eu council. under meeting with volodymyr zelenskyi. he

proposed to make a break in the war, namely a ceasefire, and then continue peace negotiations. zelensky did not agree with him. and in a few days, the hungarian leader flew to moscow on an unannounced visit as part of, as the hungarian government says, a peacekeeping mission to discuss the war in ukraine with vladimir putin. it was the first visit of an eu leader to russia since the start of its full-scale invasion of ukraine. the eu took it critically. then the president. of the council charles michel stated that hungary does not have powers to negotiate with moscow on behalf of the european union regarding the war in ukraine, even without the presence of kyiv. the ukrainian government made a similar statement. kyiv emphasized: the principle of no agreement on ukraine without ukraine must remain steadfast. but this did not stop orbán, and he continued his world peacekeeping mission. after a few days, he will publicly post a photo for. of the chinese capital, and

he signed the photo with the words "peace mission 3.0" beijing. there he met with the country's president xi jinping, and he called china the key force in creating conditions for peace in ukraine and added: "we are not alone." and when the whole western world was shocked by the news of the attack on ohmadit, orbán wrote that this is why he started his peacekeeping mission to avoid further bloodshed and added that his fears were in true, he said and flew to the united states for the nato summit, where he met with turkish president recep tayyip erdogan. he called turkey the only country that successfully acted as a mediator between ukraine and russia. later, orbán met with former us president donald trump trump. at his maralago estate in florida , they discussed, as orbán himself says, the ways of establishing peace in ukraine and noted that it is trump who will achieve it. the last place where orban

spoke about peace in ukraine was great britain, where he came to the summit of the european political community. they believe that they can destroy the russians by military means. i do not think so. i believe that the solution to this conflict is not on the battlefield. and they hope for it, but not me. i know russians, i know the soviet union, i know ukrainians. i belong to a neighboring country. i i know the whole context. it is impossible to find a solution on the battlefield. what exactly he sees as a solution to the war in ukraine is still unknown, and observers are already calling the hungarian leader a self-proclaimed peacemaker without a plan. yes, orban was condemned in the european parliament for his trips. orbán violates all the agreements and principles of the eu's foreign policy, this is what the meps said, demanding that hungary be punished for this. we will discuss what happened and the positions taken by the hungarian government. trying

to separate the position of the hungarian government and the eu council presidency. i am calling a closed meeting only for ministers to discuss what has happened in recent weeks, starting with the prime minister's visits. orbán to moscow, kyiv and beijing, to the speeches of his foreign minister at the un security council, where he accused the european union of being a union that pushes for war, this is absolutely unacceptable. the european union supports ukraine and wants to end this war on the basis of the un charter. we will talk about how the member states evaluate this position of the country, which at the same time is the head of the eu on a rotating basis. after corben's train european commissioners were banned from traveling to hungary. for informal meetings, however, one of them, which was supposed to take place in budapest, has already been moved to brussels. this should show the hungarian prime minister that it is not possible to abuse representation in the eu. let me remind you that hungary will be the presiding country in the european council for six months. so actually, what was it? we are talking about it with

my colleague georgy erman, a correspondent of the bbc . congratulations, my colleague, why does viktor orban need this shuttle diplomacy? congratulations, well, everyone,... this is viktor's activity orbán, it is essentially aimed at destabilizing the power in otershchyna itself, both diplomatic activity and domestic political activity, directly his diplomatic visit served to show him as a peacemaker, first of all, of course, in the eyes of hungarians, and his special policy towards russia, it is aimed at just to preserve supplies of cheaper russian energy carriers. at the expense of which viktor orbán ensures a certain level of social stability in hungary, as he has repeatedly emphasized, this is not to the utility payments of ordinary hungarians grew or did not grow, this is important for him, for

him in order to continue winning in the parliamentary elections in hungary and to retain power, this is the preservation of social stability, the role of energy carriers in this is very large, and he... is completely satisfied precisely the settlement of the war between russia and ukraine, which will involve the fact that ukraine will not join the north atlantic alliance, he has repeatedly said that russia wants to be surrounded by a belt of neutral states, therefore it is unacceptable to invite ukraine to nato, and he is acting in this direction, which... is looking for allies in this regard and is trying to build bridges with china, for example, he has excellent relations with donald trump, and it can be assumed that as soon as donald trump wins , presidential elections, will put forward some initiatives regarding ukraine, of course,

viktor orban can become one of his key allies in europe. yes, i don't want to ask you about the group of far-right forces in the european parliament, it is well known that such and such... was the inspiration of the new alliance it is orban, can you explain why it is dangerous? after the elections to the european parliament, this june, approximately 200,720 deputies with eurosceptic right-wing views entered the european parliament, but they are divided into different factions, there is one faction european conservatives and reformers, which are grouped around the prime minister. george maloney's italy and the polish law and justice party. this group supports ukraine. and recently, during the voting of the resolution in the european parliament on july 17, i voted for the support of ukraine, the continuation of this support. another large group eurosceptics are precisely the group created by

viktor orbán and marine le pen, the leader of the french national union. of course, they do not consider themselves ultra-right, they call themselves patriots, sovereignists. by national conservatives and so on, and unites them, there are not only french nationalists, but also eurosceptics from the netherlands, italy, spain, portugal, about 10 parties, they, united by the idea of ​​stopping immigration to europe, united by the idea of ​​stopping transfer of powers from national governments to institutions of the european union, this is what euroscepticism is all about. they do not have a common position , in fact, regarding ukraine, there are certain differences in views between the members of this association, but the dominant position is that these parties, the french national association, in

orbán's party , have the greatest place in the dutch eurosceptic party, the freedom party, they want some form of reconciliation with russia. ah, and they speak out, for example, against the supply of weapons to ukraine, with which ukraine can strike directly on russian territory, yes, yes yes. european troops to ukraine, yes, thank you colleague for the conversation, for such a meaningful conversation, and more about how viktor orban is rallying the power of the far-right in the european parliament around him, read in the article george orban and le pen created a vec group that is against supporting ukraine, what it's dangerous bbc.ua traditionally read our site. so, how far can viktor orban go in his intentions and actions? the head of the kyiv society joins the broadcast. hungarians tibor tompa, i congratulate you, but viktor orbán is criticized for his so-called, as we

have already heard of the peacekeeping mission, yes, but can the european union influence it in any way? good evening, thank you for joining, i believe that everything that viktor orbán is doing today is a shame and a shame for the entire hungarian community in the world, and including... for the entire world community, how can you influence orbán? i think that everything that ursula fondeyan is doing is very correct, because orbán today is such an expression of the interests of the kremlin, the expression of the interests of russia, unfortunately, and including using the map. national communities, of the hungarian and national community,

including us, the hungarians of all ukraine, in order to implement such short-sighted political goals in the european union, and speaks allegedly about the oppression of hungarians in ukraine, which does not contain anything about this at all, so i believe that the european union, the leaders need to do, as they are doing today, put orbán in his place, that is why he is not yet a democrat, unfortunately, he is not a european leader among all the european leaders of europe, so, unfortunately, today we we have such a non-european leader. who needs to be put in place, and the stronger the better, yes, well, this is your opinion,

yes, like the head of the kyiv association of hungarians, yes, she has the right to life, please tell me how this happened, that viktor orban became the main anti-ukrainian voice among western politicians, in 2009 he got to know the united russia very closely. with the party of the rashists, and since then he has actually engaged in such an anti-european, anti-ukrainian policy in order to embody his such e-e autocratic methods of government, unfortunately. yes, and in conclusion, you talked about the fact that europe should do something, take what steps, and to summarize, and if possible briefly, what about ukraine? what should the authorities do to improve relations with the hungarian prime minister? eh, it is impossible

to improve normal relations with the hungarian prime minister, because , sorry, he is such an extreme pro-autocrat for today, i think that the only eh right eh direction for the ukrainian authorities in order to influence orbán through. european countries that would put him in his place. yes, thank you, thank you for the conversation and analysis, tibor tompa, head of the hungarian community of kyiv was on our air, thank you. and that's all for today, more stories on our bbc.ua website, and we'll be on the air tomorrow, as always, at 9 p.m. all the best.

suspected of iryna's murder. today , law enforcement officers detained an 18-year-old boy in the city of dnipro, who has already been identified, he is a football player, a beginner. the second important fact, which was made public by his friend in one of the national broadcasts broadcaster, we will call this broadcaster so that these facts do not appear to us

as fictions, because now a lot, i think, will change in the next few days, his friend said. that his father is fighting , and it seems to have already appeared in the father's comments, although without a name and surname, so there is no 100% certainty, regarding the fact that he does not see any sense in the fact that his son had motives for committing such a crime, in the end, now a lot will really depend on the qualitative actions of the investigation in order to to uncover this truly high-profile murder of a man. who is a very important person in the modern history of ukraine. this project is spoken by velikiy lviv, traditionally at 9:15 p.m., we welcome everyone to the tv channel slava ukraine. glory to the heroes and we immediately add our guest, we continue the conversation with vitaly portnikov, journalist, writer, tv presenter, publicist, political commentator. mr. vitaly, summing up, several days have already passed, and

six days after the murder of iryna farion, it actually became a big deal for me. such a shock, she was indeed a frequent guest of the gvl project, she had her own project on the nta tv channel, which is broadcast and, in particular , the great lviv gen of ukrainians speaks on the youtube channel, and we still, it seems to me, have not completely moved away from this information, but how did you perceive it , as a person who actually saw a lot during his career even as a journalist and observed it from one side, was it something so unusual for you, or did you expect it to be in ukraine? this can be, well, and the second following question, which will also be important for me to you: have you taken care now about your safety, because you are also not a simple person in this entire information space, which is now in ukraine? i believe that if they want to kill a person, they will kill him, it seems to me that this is an absolutely obvious thing, these are,

you know, people who are engaged in political activities there, who are representatives of the institution, there is the president. are there people with billions in wealth, they have to take care of their safety and live in a world of closed rooms, bunkers, three or four security groups of some kind, one of which transmits something else and this, by the way, also like you know, it doesn't guarantee, we saw an assassination attempt on donald trump, a little bit, otherwise a bullet, a bullet about... aimed and donald trump was no longer among us, although he is not just the president there, he is the former president of the united states of america, think about it yes, what should be the level of security, so i think that when we talk about journalists, we should not be some naive people, if there is a planned real killing of someone from the representatives of the creative intelligentsia, the creative public,

then this person will be killed, i absolutely about this never thought about it, because if i thought about it even for a ... seconds, i was not engaged in this activity at all, you see, for me the murder of irina farion is just another moment in what i have been watching all my professional life and in moscow, and in kyiv, i remember the murder of georgy gongadze, i remember the murder in moscow of galina storovoytova, i spoke with her a few days before this murder, i remember the murder in... moscow of anna politkovskaya, i we met her in the supermarket two days or one day before this murder, because we didn't want to far from each other and they discussed the problems of political terror in russia right there, well , they talked like that, and she also told me that i need to take care of security the way you are telling me now, but she was killed literally a few days later, just also in

her own, in her own entrance, there, by the way, almost in the same house where she lived in moscow. galina storovoitova, who was killed in st. petersburg, i remember the murder of russian politicians there, serhii yushenkov, the famous democratic politician boris nimtsov there, just outside the windows of volodymyr putin in the kremlin, boris, i also remember, i spoke with him a few weeks before that, he had no idea that he could be killed, because he believed that in russia this idea of ​​political murders was the representatives of the political elite no, he protected by his status as a political figure and critic of the regime, well, we saw that, how they tried to poison alexei navalny there in russia, and that's all... it's the same system, why i mention the russians, because it's one system, or system of influence, or system of action, i'm not talking about murders outside the borders of the russian federation, you

say, take care of your safety, you can even be in great britain, if they want to pour some poison into your tea, as was the case with oleksandr litvanenko, they will, so it's simple, you know, it's simple the choice is certain, when a person there decides that he is going to join the armed... forces of ukraine, he understands that he may not return from the front, the only thing that can reassure him there is that he may fight there for several years, then the war will end, it is demobilized, it will be alive, and when a person starts to work political journalism, i'm sorry, you know for sure that all your life you are in a situation where a serviceman is at the front for a year or two, you just live in it, from the day you start doing it until the day you you're done with it, and if you don't ... understand that you're at greater risk than people who are even in the armed forces there at any given time, because your service has no beginning and no end, then you

don't have to do it then, since a person who is afraid of death should not, at least in peacetime, be a contractor there, be a soldier, and a person who is afraid of blood should not be a surgeon, you can't operate if you're in a stupor, if you... see blood , i don't know, here you are, when they take blood from a blood test there, you look at it, i look, i'm not very, i'm not very, i look away, i can look, but i instinctively look away, and so when i see a surgeon, i think, i always look at him, i at a person as a heavenly person, that i think a person does such a thing, i could not just enter the operating room, to the anatomical theater, and that is why they are different people, someone can practice medicine, thank god we are operated on and we are... alive, someone can practice political journalism, if everyone thought that he would die, then this job would not exist, whether investigations or military journalism, think about the risk of our colleagues

who are at the front, by the way, i always thought that if i was a political analyst when i was very young, then i have a lower level of risk, than my fellow practitioners war journalism, because i come before the war, as a rule, i know where... there will be a war, i come there to do a report in a country where bombs will go off tomorrow or the day after tomorrow and people will be killing each other, and my colleague, what a war journalist, he arrives when the bombs are already exploding and the killings are going on, but then i realized that this is not a completely correct assessment of the situation, because my colleague, who is a war journalist, can only die by accident, and i can die planned, and these are different things, i'm up to it being philosophical, i believe that if... a person is aware of the level of risk that exists, he simply lives in this level of risk and understands the importance of his mission. if we talk about the murder of irina farion, about the consequences of this

murder, an 18-year-old boy was arrested today, summing up this topic, the first part of the question, how close do you think we are to the full disclosure of this crime, and the second part of the question, well, it is somewhere like smoothly flows from the first, you said that the murder of political opponents in principle is, unfortunately, a familiar culture for russian kagibists, officials, people, special services, security forces, and now such a program version is that this murder was carried out in the interests of the russian federation, against which iryna farion always spoke, then - if we... assume, because after all, the investigation has to say that it was ordered one way or another by the special services of the russian federation, then did they achieve their goals, because

indeed during the week there were conversations that it could to somehow split ukrainian society, but absolutely not, or to intimidate, i tell you, well, we have already seen that when the russians, that when the russians start using some political tools against us, they lose, because they are absolutely unable to understand ukrainian society, and for some reason they do not learn, but at the front they learn something, in political life they do not learn anything for one simple reason, because they are sure that ukrainian society is a continuation of the russian one, and they always work with us as if we were in bryansk, and not in kyiv or lviv, it's not right approach, but they don't have anything else, and i think they're going to continue because they need an atmosphere here of destabilizing violence, you know, i'd still like to say that we have to... be aware that we 've entered a new a stage of the war, a new stage of the war, which will be connected not only with the successes or failures of the armed forces. we have been for almost three years, well 2 and a half, we think. that

the fate of the country, it will depend solely on whether the armed forces of ukraine will succeed in stopping the enemy and can liberate our territory at some point, will fail, and it is absolutely logical, if we cannot stop the enemy, and he moves on, he destroys the state, but if the enemy is stopped, and he stands on a certain line of contact, it does not mean that we stopped the danger, because in the history of long-term wars, and this long-term war has already begun. and here is the murder of irina farion, this is the beginning of a certain stage of the war, when the russians will try to, you know, win this state internally. they have experience. russia itself during the first world war did not lost the war, but self-destructed. the same thing happened with germany during the first world war: not a single foreign soldier on the territory of germany and a complete collapse of statehood, complete, complete. well, by the way,

this was the reason that later... helped adolf hitler, so in this situation, as you understand, maintaining balance in the state is now the most important task of the government and society, because there may be a situation when the army, which is worthy of protecting the country from the enemy, will have nowhere to return, there will simply be wasteland for the army, and in the public sense of this word, and in the state sense of this word, and from the point of view of attitudes, and from the point of view of the possible development of the state, and this can also become the goal of the russians according to their famous proverb: do not get to anyone, if we cannot conquer ukraine, we will destroy it, disorganize it, demoralize it, contribute to its social degradation, show everyone that even if we cannot conquer something, we can reduce everything to nothing, and this is the most important thing, we do not keep the state in rear end effort. armed

forces of ukraine to protect the country from the enemy will be useless, this must be clearly understood: we do not hold back social life, we do not hold back the ability to unite, we do not hold back the economy, no amount of armed forces will help ukraine to survive, this is what must be understood, and at least for the sake of the people who are fighting at the front today had a place to return to, so that they would not return to the wasteland, to a disorganized state, where they would have no life prospects, that after these years in the trenches, they would still have years in... without a way out , if only for the sake of this, ukraine needs to be preserved, for the sake of people who risk their lives, for the sake of ukraine's existence and development. thank you, every ukrainian writes to us in the comments today that they are at gunpoint, ukrainians feel it, and really, if we lived only in fear, we would not be able to fight for such a long time that ukrainians are fighting. vitaly portnikov also said this when asked about his safety. iryna farion actually spoke about this, because she

was also asked if she was afraid . but no, she was not afraid. let's move on to our studio, mr. vitaly, thank you for this conversation. congratulations to everyone who is in our studio, we work live, we are on the espresso tv channel, on the nta tv channel, and on the youtube channel velikiy lviv speaks. thank you to all our audience who are with us now, we feel your support during these days, since this terrible tragedy happened, when iryna farion was killed and... she would also be grateful for this support, we present those guests who are today from with us and will have a conversation about all important topics. with us is sofia osoba, daughter of iryna farion, wife of a serviceman of the national guard of ukraine. lyubomyr melnychuk, head of the lviv city organization lo svoboda. good evening. dmytro shvets, also with us, law enforcement officer, lawyer of iryna farion. halyna

pomyluyko nedashkivska. literary critic, friend of iryna faron. maryana prysiazhniuk is with us, glavkom correspondent, expert of the stop fake project. taras batenko, people's deputy of ukraine, chairman of the deputy group for the future. good evening yaroslav gerasym, with us, doctor of philological sciences, professor of lviv national university ivan franko. mykola buchyn, political scientist, professor of the lviv polytechnic national university. good evening. before we speak. and this is important to give at the beginning of the program to sophia, the daughter of iryna farion, i still want the lawyer to give a short comment, regarding what you know, today they detained, detained a suspect of committing a crime, there are comments from the national police, well, you as a lawyer u.s...