to block the european peace fund, this fund, this amount of money of about 6.5 billion euros, which should compensate those eu countries that provide military aid to ukraine, so budapest first blocks the payment of these 6.5 billion euros, de facto, it is not harms ukraine directly, it harms european countries that help ukraine. but this is a kind of indirect measure. budapest is actually a block. budapest will continue to block the european peace fund, but this block has lasted for years. in addition, hungary appealed to the european commission with with a request 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 for now. for now, because hungary has already chosen essentially 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 joining the eu is a long way. i am several years old before ukraine can join the european union. it will definitely happen, but it won't.

let's talk about them. 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. does brussels have the power to finally show viktor orbán a red card. it is necessary to define what a red card is. 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 football, here he can have a few yellow cards and still stay in the game for now. a trip to moscow, as well as a trip to beijing, and how these trips. were carried out 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 union. certain political countermeasures have already been applied. for example, some eu member states boycott high-level meetings of the hungarian presidency. the head of the european commission, ursula vonlein, is not going to come to budapest, which is a very strong diplomatic signal. however, when it comes to practical countermeasures, punitive measures of sorts, the eu can do nothing.

unlike in football, a player who breaks the rules will not be sent off the field of play, but he will have much less opportunity to achieve something in the game, and that is what will happen to hungary, it is already happening to them. it is already clear that the trip to moscow caused hungary suffered serious reputational losses from the point of view of prestige and trust of allies. meanwhile, it is not at all clear that it was hungary that benefited from this trip. 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 it, 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 from what he... spoke when

he returned. it is very difficult to assess, the last time they met was in beijing. even then, during the beijing meeting, orbán openly said that the previous meeting in beijing was initiated by putin, and orbán could not say no. it was actually very revealing, 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. regarding the current meeting, which from'. two days after the trip to kyiv, the hungarian narrative is that it was budapest that initiated it, but again, it is not clear that hungary actually benefited from this, instead it is quite clear that russia did. it was very interesting to watch how russian state media covered this

visit. when putin and orban started a discussion, literally in the fifth sentence, putin called orban an envoy of the european union, which is technically not true, but all the russian media covered orban's visit like that. the president of the european union would come to moscow, showing how important a player russia is and that it is not isolated at all. over the course of several days, all russian state officials virtually celebrated this meeting, noting how important a player putin is to the president of the european union. so, from the point of view of domestic politics, russia won a lot, which was very beneficial for it. why was it good for hungary? i honestly don't know. orbán 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. ugh. it's not your fault. no plan

exist. this narrative about the plan is actually very interesting because orbán is missing three things necessary for mediation. firstly, he has no plan, secondly, he has no mandate, no one else can provide it, thirdly, he 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 cease-fire is needed first, so the peace plan must be preceded by a cease-fire, this is a technical detail. as for the plan itself, there is no orbán plan, when he met with president zelensky, he called for some strange form of segmented ceasefire, but it

was not detailed, and i'm not aware of any such document that elaborates on 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 should end according to the russian position. this is russia's ultimatum 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, praised the chinese peace plan, the same chinese peace plan or settlement plan that china proposed on the first anniversary of the war. so, in kyiv, moscow and beijing, orbán essentially voiced three different plans, so i don't see that he has his own plan, it's 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, one must have a mandate to do so. the third point follows from this: lack of trust 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 asked any country to become a mediator, then... most likely not hungary, isn't it, to put it mildly, and if we talk about russia, then from their point of view, hungary remains first of all a country eu and nato, a member of two alliances. moscow perceives them as hostile, so it would be very unusual if russia decided to trust orbán. yes, orbán is useful a 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 necessary for any kind of peace mediation, mandate, trust and plan, are all missing. so you're not the only one who hasn't found his position, what exactly is going on. there is no such thing as orbán's plan.

will continue to provide humanitarian aid orbán always says that the hungarian government to ukraine, but not weapons, because this could bring the war closer to the hungarian borders, is he really are you afraid of this? 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 kiev, after ukraine managed to push the russians out of mykolaiv oblast, then to liberate part of kherson oblast, then to liberate kharkiv oblast, and after the front... basically stabilized in october-november of 22 , since then no man could think that the russian army ever

will fit much closer to hungary. this is 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 exchanges information with the eu and nato, so budapest has the data to correctly assess 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 arguing so intensely with the eu leadership, what does he want to achieve with this? in hungary, there are problems related to 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 interest lies in normalizing relations with the european union and solving problems related to the rule of law and at the same time ensure that the blocked funds. 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 clearly follows a different approach, the highly confrontational policies pursued by orbán seem to serve almost exclusively domestic political interests. in the area of ​​rule of law, the european union requires hungary to dismantle some key institutional components of the orbán regime: control over mass media, suppression of civil society, influence 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 are in conflict with each other. as in any authoritarian system, he chooses the security interests of his own regime, because if orbán decides to comply with the eu's demands, it will mean that he himself will have to deconstruct key elements of the regime that guarantee his own power. it's very unlikely that he will go for that, so instead he chooses open confrontation and tries to create a situation where in domestic politics for a... domestic audience, he can try to present the whole story so that hungary is not getting eu money due to the fault of the eu, because the eu hates hungary, because the eu discriminates against hungary, for example, because hungary pursues a certain peace policy that is against the eu's interests. so, this is mostly an internal political game. there

is also an element of not about... and when they are more does not expect to get this money back, they can afford to continue the confrontation because they have nothing to lose. i am quite pessimistic.

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 can he do to protect the minority, and is he just saying this to push his political agenda.

sovereignty of ukraine. dozens of them have already died. the exact number is classified, but it is quite large. so there are ethnic hungarians who are actively fighting for ukraine. if hungary were really concerned about the fate of the hungarian minority in zakarpattia oblast, it would be interested in helping ukraine as much as possible in order to help the hungarian minority in order to help ukraine.

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 granting military aid help more so in conditional issues, educational rights, in what happened. the key source of differences between ukraine and hungary, the tension has existed for 7-8 years, the question of what if is difficult to answer. nevertheless, for several years, there was no noticeable constructive approach from the hungarian and ukrainian sides. the budapest government

has shown no willingness to solve problems. thus, for several years in two-sided. there was a stalemate in relations , which was also harmful for the ethnic hungarians of the transcarpathian region. we hope that the recent meeting between president zelenskyi and prime minister viktor orban in kyiv will change something. this meeting has been planned for years. orbán 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, education systems, educational rights, cultural rights and all these things. in the long term i am optimistic about the future, also because after this meeting, the head

of the zakarpattia region viktor mykyta announced that there is a plan to organize a ukrainian-hungarian business forum to discuss hungary's contribution to the recovery of ukraine and hungarian investments. they usually have a restraining 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 orbán's visit to moscow was obviously surprise for kyiv, the ukrainian reaction was very restrained, moderate, wise and not escalating at all. this again is some indication that there is a chance for the relationship to improve, despite the fact that several years have been lost. i hope the future will look a little better, and one more thing: the meeting between zelenskyi and orban was organized literally in 5 days. organizing

a meeting of such a high level, in such a short time, is possible only when both parties really want it to take place. 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. hungary's 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. how dangerous can this tandem be if donald trump wins the elections in november? this expression is a tandem. interesting, by calling them a tandem we're indicating that they 're of equal power, but that's not exactly the case, but okay, let's call them a tandem, whatever you want to call them, it's kind of like a one-sided love or something, i'm not very good i understand on soap operas, but i'm sure...

by the united states. for small countries, the usual strategy is to have good relations with both parties. even for medium-sized countries, medium-sized states, such as ukraine. ukrainian diplomacy in washington, led by ambassador oksana markarova, has excellent connections with the democratic camp and with several republican politicians. this is a classic strategy for how countries approach 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, which is very unusual. if trump wins, budapest won't get much, it's not worth it. evaluate the importance of hungary for trump. in addition, hungary's close relationship with china will be a problem for the incoming trump administration. i consider it a serious problem. even hungary's close relations with russia will not necessarily be beneficial. 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 the president drops out of the race. question, but if you don't

mind, i'll ask one more: how strong is the position of viktor orbán in hungary, and how long is he going to remain the prime minister of this country? at least until 2026, the next parliamentary elections are scheduled for 2026. if mr. orbán is healthy and continues to work as prime minister, there is no scenario in which he could lose his... power by 2026, which will happen in 2026, well, the parliamentary elections are still a long way off. thank you very much mr. ratz for joining us today and thank you very much for your answers, i really appreciate it. it was andra shratz, hungarian a security analyst, an expert of the german council on international relations, as well as a lecturer

at corwin university spoke. with him on serious questions, in particular about hungary, about its leader viktor orbán, as well as about such sensitive hungarian-ukrainian relations, well, what 's next, the conversation was interesting, the answers were interesting, i think you will like it, well, on this is how i say goodbye to you, my name is yuriy fizar, see you soon. vasyl zema's big broadcast, my name is vasyl zima, this is a big broadcast on the espresso tv channel, two hours of broadcast time, two hours of your time. my colleagues and i will talk about the most important thing, for two hours, to learn about the war, about the military, front-line component, serhii zurets, and what the world is about. yuriy feder is already in front of me and it's time to talk about what happened outside of ukraine. yury, good evening, two hours to keep up with economic news. time to talk about money during the war oleksandr morchavka in

the field with me and sports news. i invite yevhen pastukhov to talk about news for two hours in the company of favorite presenters cultural and alena chekchenina, our tv viewer is ready to say good evening to the presenters who have become like movrodnidenko to many , she is ready to talk about the weather for this weekend , as well as the distinguished guests of the studio, mustafa dzhemilov, the leader of the crimean tatar people is in touch with us, mr. mustafa, i wish you a good day of the event a day in two hours , vasyl's big broadcast of winter is a project for smart and caring people in the evening for an espresso. see this week in the collaborators program. the troops of the kremlin are standing. why young people in the occupied territories used as labor force. putin was also in the student units, was a fighter of the construction unit. but which of the pseudo-directors is preparing students for service in the russian army? the next stage of the installation of our unit. greetings, i'm olena kononenko, and this is a collaborator program about traitors who

followed the call of their hearts and wallets. to serve the russian occupiers. in today's edition, i continue to talk about the leaders and members of pro-putin youth organizations that the rashists create in the temporarily occupied territories of ukraine. yuh молодый, юна армия, rukh pershiy and this is a far from complete list of newly created russian organizations to which the occupiers are trying to attract schoolchildren and young people to promote the kremlin ideology. they try to educate or re-educate the younger generation. so that they were ready at any moment to go fight, work, or simply stand en masse for the unchanging dictator of russia. in addition to organizations for children, movements for students are also being created and popularized. we are talking about the so-called study detachments, similar ones were already in the soviet union. the first such detachments appeared on the territory of the occupied part of zaporozhye in 2023. their goal is to provide students with work in state institutions during the summer vacation in various

fields. if it's just free labor for russia, providing humanitarian aid to soldiers, rebuilding schools, going to mass rallies in support of putin, holding pro-russian lectures in schools, all this is work for young people. kyrylo volodymyrovych papazov, a native of melitopol, is one of the leaders of the regional branch of student units in the zaporizhzhia region. vladimir vladimirovich putin was also in the student units, was a fighter of the construction unit. volodymyr volodymyrovych is the biggest example for... us, we all always watch him, his decisions and support him in everything, i want to say thank you from the entire population of the new regions for everything he does for us. this young putin fanatic is 20. from open sources , the only thing known about kirill is that before the occupation of melitopol, he studied in the first year of the faculty of natural sciences and geography at melitopol state university named after bohdan khmelnytskyi. when the city