directly to ukraine, it harms european countries that help ukraine. but this is a kind of indirect measure. budapest has effectively blocked this european peace fund for quite some time, citing various reasons. so it will definitely happen, budapest will continue to block the european peace fund, but that block has been going on for years. in addition, hungary asked the european commission to put pressure on ukraine, but the european commission replied that... for now, more information, more investigations are needed, so there will be no direct intervention by the european commission, at least not yet. currently, because hungary has already chosen essentially the maximum escalation. that is, the blocking of the european peace fund for 6.5 billion euros. i don't expect that budapest can do much more. yes, you hear from hungarian officials that hungary can block the prospects of ukraine joining the eu, but... it will be

several years before ukraine can join the european union. it will definitely happen, but it won't be a quick process. so in the short term budapest has no way to put pressure on ukraine, but blocking the european peace fund, blocking 6.5 billion euros, is definitely one of the ways, it will continue. hungary and the european union. let's talk about them too. therefore, the president of the european council, charles michel, called viktor orban's trip not only to moscow, but also to beijing and washington a political mistake. he also stated that the european union reacted to this with a yellow card. the purpose

of the mandate is to finally show viktor orbán a red card. it is necessary to determine what this is a red card. if we stick to the football metaphor, then a red card means that the player must leave the field. this will not happen, no one can be kicked out of the european union. so, unlike in... soccer, here he can have a few yellow cards and still stay in the game for now. the trip to moscow, as well as the trip to beijing, and the way these trips were conducted, is a serious violation of both the written and unwritten rules of how an eu country should conduct foreign policy. consequently, it caused a great scandal and publicity within the european of the union certain...

however, when it comes to practical countermeasures, punitive measures of sorts, the eu can't do anything. unlike football, a player who breaks the rules will not be sent off the field of play, but he will have much less opportunities to achieve something in the game, this is what will happen to hungary, it is already happening to them, it is already clear. that the trip

to moscow caused hungary serious reputational losses in terms of the prestige and trust of the allies. meanwhile, it is not at all clear that it was hungary that benefited from this one trips so, the minuses are clear, but no one notes the pluses. the organization of the moscow trip, the things that orban and putin discussed, and the purpose of all this remains a kind of mystery, a kind of secret. it is simply not clear that hungary gained from this, but it is clear that it lost. can we say that mr. orbán is somehow dependent on putin, based on what we saw during his trip to russia and what he said when he returned. it is very difficult to assess, the last time they met was in beijing. even then during the beijing meeting orban openly said that the previous meeting.

it was actually very telling, it's very difficult for an eu or nato prime minister. if putin called them to go, then they had to go. such was the previous meeting. as for the current meeting, which took place two days after the trip to kyiv, the hungarian narrative is that it was budapest that initiated it, but again, it is unclear what hungary actually gained from it. instead, it is quite clear what russia got. it was very interesting to watch as russian state forces. when putin and orbán started the discussion, literally in the fifth sentence, putin called orbán the envoy of the european union, which technically, of course , is not true, but all the russian media covered orbán's visit as if the president of the european union had come to moscow, showing how important a player russia is , that it

is not isolated at all. for several days , all the russian state media actually celebrated this meeting, noting how important a player putin is to the president of the european union, so... from the point of view internal politics, russia won a lot, and it was very profitable for her. why was it good for hungary? i honestly don't know. mr. orban also said that he has some kind of peace plan for ukraine. you know the details of this peace plan, i tried to look it up on the internet but couldn't find anything. it's not your fault, there is no plan. this narrative about the plan is actually very interesting because orbán lacks the three things needed to mediate. first, he has no plan, second, he

has no mandate, no one else can provide it. thirdly, it has no legitimacy. so, it is interesting to imagine why orbán said that he is going to promote peace in ukraine. also , let's not forget that in order to achieve peace, a ceasefire is first needed, so the peace plan must be preceded by a ceasefire, this is a technical detail that concerns the plan itself, then there is no orbán plan when he met with president zelensky , he called for some strange form of segmented termination. of fire, but it was not detailed, and i am not aware of the existence of any such document which would elaborated this idea of ​​a segmented ceasefire. when he went to moscow, he didn't even get to say a word,

because putin said almost immediately that russia was not ready to accept any external peace plan. and that the war must end according to the russian position, which is the ultimatum that russia announced just a day before the peace summit regarding ukraine and switzerland. the same ultimatum, which you know very well, ukraine must completely abandon the donetsk, luhansk, zaporizhia and kherson regions and crimea. the ukrainian army must. completely withdraw its troops from these regions, ukraine should forget about the intention to join nato and so on. so basically, putin didn't even let orbán explain his own ideas, instead he issued the usual russian ultimatums. when

orbán went to beijing, he did the third thing, he praised the chinese peace plan, the same chinese peace plan or settlement plan that china offered on the first anniversary of the war. so, in kyiv, moscow and beijing, orbán essentially announced three different plans, so i don't see him having own plan is the absence of a plan. as for the lack of a mandate, no one asked hungary to mediate in this war, no one asked hungary to do anything in the war, in order to be successful in mediation efforts, you need to have a mandate to do so. this leads to the third point: the lack of evidence. currently, hungary does not have the confidence within the eu and nato necessary for any mediation efforts. relations between hungary and ukraine have long been strained. so, if ukraine were to ask any country to become a mediator, it would be faster certainly not hungary. is not it? that 's putting it mildly. and if we talk about russia, from

their point of view, hungary still remains primarily an eu and nato country. a member of two alliances that moscow perceives as hostile. therefore , it would be very unusual if... decided to trust orbán, yes, orbán is a useful tool for moscow, and hungarian foreign policy for russian diplomacy, but this does not mean at all that there is trust between them, so even the three basic requirements are necessary for any so you're not the only one who hasn't found his position, what exactly is happening, there is no such thing as orbán's plan. thank you very much, mr. ratz, prime minister orbán always says that the hungarian government will continue to provide humanitarian aid to ukraine, but not weapons. because it might bring the war closer to the hungarian borders, is he really afraid of that?

as far as i know, not anymore. in the first days or in the first weeks of a full-scale war, when it was not yet clear whether ukraine would be able to withstand and how many territories the russians actually occupy, maybe so. but after ukraine won near kyiv, after ukraine managed to push the russians out of mykolaiv oblast, then liberate part of kherson oblast, then liberate kharkiv oblast, and after the front was largely stabilized in october-november 22, no one since then could have thought that the russian army would ever come much closer closer to hungary. it's not... something that anyone would seriously fear from the hungarian side, i mean, you can think or say a lot

of bad things about hungarian diplomacy or foreign policy, but the people who do it are professionals. at a certain level, hungary information is exchanged with the eu and nato, so budapest has data for a correct assessment of the situation. therefore the argument. or a kind of argument that budapest does not give weapons because these weapons will bring the front line closer to hungary, does not make sense. it's more like an excuse. i thought so too. let's talk a little more about the relationship between hungary and the european union. the biggest question i have is why prime minister orbán is fighting so intensely. with the eu leadership. what does he want to achieve with this? there are related problems

with the rule of law, because of this, several billion euros of eu financial support for hungary have been frozen, so budapest does not have access to them. my assessment is that hungary's interests lie in normalizing relations with the european union, solving problems related to the rule of law, and at the same time ensuring that blocked eu funds begin to flow to hungary. this is what the new polish government immediately did, after which the european commission immediately reacted and began to direct previously suspended funds to poland. hungary apparently adheres to another

approach, orbán's highly confrontational policies seem to serve almost exclusively domestic political interests. in the area of ​​the rule of law, the european union requires hungary to destroy some key institutional components of the orbán regime, control over mass media, suppression of civil society. society, the impact on the judicial system and some other things, without these changes hungary will not have access to frozen eu assets. viktor orbán needs to choose between the security interests of his regime and the financial interests of the country, because they contradict each other. as in every authoritarian system, he chooses interest. security of his own regime, because if orbán decides to comply with the eu's demands, it will mean that he himself will need

to deconstruct the key elements of the regime that guarantee his own power. it is very unlikely that he will go for it. so instead he chooses an open confrontation and tries to create a situation where in domestic politics, for a domestic audience, he can try to present the whole story in such a way that... hungary doesn't get the money it is the eu's fault, because the eu hates hungary, because the eu discriminates against hungary, for example, because hungary pursues a certain peace policy that is contradictory. interests of the eu, therefore, it is mostly an internal political game. there is also an element of opacity here. the hungarian government believes less and less in the possibility of receiving this money from the european union. there is an opinion that this money is essentially lost. and when they

no longer hope to get that money back, they can. allow themselves to continue the confrontation, because they have nothing left to lose. i rather pessimistic, unfortunately. i expect this confrontational relationship between orbán and the european union to continue, and hungary's eu presidency will not help matters much. mr. rats, let's talk a little bit about the hungarian minority in ukraine, in the zakarpattia region, especially in the berehiv district, there are quite a lot of ethnic hungarians living there, and prime minister orbán always says that he

is going to protect this minority and will do everything possible for this what he can do. minority protection, and is he just saying that, to advance their political agenda? i'm afraid it's more likely the second, there have been several cases where hungary's foreign policy has actually harmed the interests of the hungarian minority living in ukraine, for example, military support is one such case.

who are actively fighting for ukraine, if hungary really cared about the fate of the hungarian minority in zakarpattia oblast, it would be interested in helping ukraine as much as possible, to help the hungarian minority as well, to help ukraine win. moreover, imagine a situation that could to take place in the first weeks of a full-scale invasion, imagine that ukraine would then suffer a serious defeat. does anyone seriously think that if russia dominated ukraine, if ukraine had a russian puppet government, something like yanukovych, number two, that would be good for the hungarian ethnic minority. does anyone seriously think that russia would not suppress all ethnic minorities belonging to eu and

nato countries. no one will say so, and yet budapest refrained from providing military aid. but more in conditional issues, educational rights, etc because it was the key source of differences between ukraine and hungary, the tension has existed for 7-8 years on a question that, if anything, is difficult to answer. nevertheless, for several

this meeting has been planned for years, orban has been constantly invited by president zelenskyi for many years, and now the two leaders have met in person. we hope that this will become a catalyst for the normalization of bilateral relations. recently, there have been certain gestures, both from the hungarian side and from the ukrainian side. when it comes to technical details about languages, educational systems, educational rights, cultures. business forum to discuss hungary's contribution to ukraine's recovery and hungarian investments.

and when money is on the table, it usually has a dampening effect on the discussion. when we talk about the economy, when we talk about money, it's always a more rational thing than when we talk about more symbolic political issues. despite the fact that orban's visit to moscow obviously came as a surprise to kyiv, the ukrainian reaction was very restrained. in this case, both parties really wanted for the meeting to take place, and this is again a good sign that ukraine and hungary are now ready to overcome some difficult issues and

move forward. my last question to you, mr. ratz, will be about what i would call the orbán-trump tandem. hungarian prime minister viktor orbán constantly praises the potential future president of the united states , donald trump, and donald trump speaks well of orbán. two weeks ago, during his visit to the nato summit in washington, orbán even visited florida and met with donald trump in maralago. as far as this tandem could be dangerous if donald trump...

it's some kind of one-sided love or something, i'm not very good at soap bars, but i'm sure we can find a name. it is interesting that hungarian diplomacy 100% supported donald trump. hungary's ambassador to washington, sábolcs takacs, said that...

by the united states. for smaller countries, the usual strategy is to have good relations with both sides. even for medium-sized countries, medium-sized states, such as ukraine. this is a classic strategy for how countries feel about the current presidential race. you have good relations with both sides and you delegate very trained, professional diplomats as ambassadors such as ambassador markarov from the ukrainian side or ambassador takacs from the hungarian side. however , hungary fully supports the republicans this time, it is very unusual, if trump

wins, budapest will not get much, the importance of hungary to trump should not be overestimated. in addition, hungary's close relationship with china will be a problem for the future the trump administration. i think it's a serious problem, even hungary's close relationship with russia... so, even if trump wins, even if the hungarian bid wins, i'm not sure that it can bring any strategic benefits to hungary. meanwhile, if a democratic president leaves the race, hungarian-american relations will further deteriorate. of course, i said this would be the last question, but if you don't mind, i 'll ask one more. as far as. strong is viktor orbán's position in hungary and how long is he going to stay as prime minister of this country? at least until 2000. the 26th year,

the next parliamentary elections are scheduled for 2026, if mr. orbán is healthy and continues to serve as prime minister, there is no scenario in which he could lose his power before 2026 , which will happen in 2026, well, the parliamentary elections are still a long way off. thank you very much mr. rads for joining us today and thank you very much for your answers, i really appreciate it. it was andra schratz, a hungarian security analyst, an expert at the german council on international relations, and a teacher of corvin university talked to him about serious issues, in particular about hungary, about its leader viktor orbán, as well as about such sensitive hungarian-ukrainian relations, so what next? the conversation was interesting, the answers were interesting, i think you will like it. well,

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presenters, presenters, that many. but like relatives, as well as distinguished guests of the studio, the events of the day in two hours, vasyl zima's big broadcast, a project for smart and caring people. espresso in the evening. greetings to everyone from espresso, i'm anayeva melnyk, this is news and i'll start with the long-awaited information, now officially f16 in ukraine, this was confirmed by president volodymyr zelensky. and by the end of the year, ukraine should receive 20 f-16 aircraft, the economist writes, and the rest

are promised by the coalition. led by denmark and the netherlands.