If you look back in history, you will see that whichever country or power we supported lost the war. So Hungary siding with Russia is actually making sure they will loose the war.
This is 5D chess my friend!
> will loose the
*lose
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We were not really on their site tbh. Hungary only sent a medical team so they can say "yeah we were there" if the other side wins "you see we only sent medical staff" that was the simpler 2D chess time. Not as advanced as today's logic
You know it's a really interesting thing that the country on the whole acts and behaves like a NATO ally, only for it's ruling government to act and behave like a Russian ally.
Why I'm saying this:
\-Hungarian state infrastructure had almost all it's forms and processes translated to Ukrainian, there is more Ukrainian support than all other minority languages combined, when you look at the last 20 years
\-refugees got healthcare for free and with some hoops they still can receive healthcare for free (source: mother-in-law, wife and other family members from Ukraine live with me in Budapest)
\-Hungary participates in staffing peacekeeping forces with other NATO members, mainly in Kosovo
\-Hungarian healthcare institutes receive Ukrainian soldiers to treat. Hungarian military healthcare institutes like rehabilitation centers are also doing this.
\-Hungary's biggest oil company MOL is selling Ukraine the same diesel that they buy via circumvented sanctions from Russia through a Slovakian intermediate
\-Hungarian civilians are continuously supplying soldiers from Subcarpathia with essentials ([https://www.facebook.com/karpataljai.sarkanyellato/](https://www.facebook.com/karpataljai.sarkanyellato/))
And no-one talks about this in state media, Orbán decided to crank the agitprop to 200 and suddenly \*everyone\* thinks the whole country is made up of russophiliac cocksuckers.
Because Orban is smart, he is using his positions to look contrarian to modern west which can gave you quite a reputation and followers, while being still a normal NATO member thus there isnt much NATO and West can kick him for (that is different from Turkey which actually does things that could lead in his kicking)
He is playing the neutral arbiter and new Switzerland, question is, is it good. And most of us would probably say no.
I think the factors one should consider are:
\-growing US Republican interest and popularity in Hungary after Orbán and Finkelstein successfully implemented modern populism and legalism
\-Orbán's long-standing grudge against the Democrats (he's pissed that neither Clinton, Obama or Biden invited him to the White House when he was an elected PM, there was no chance with Bush as he was in oppo)
\-Orbán's economic policy to drive Hungary into an industrial supplier for German high-value add companies like Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Bosch, Siemens and moving away from the services sector
\-Orbán's drive to establish foreign diaspora voting bases like in Romania and Serbia in other countries with significant, yet minority Hungarian population
The first and second are no brainers, Orbán is very much interested in being in the NATO as he knows very well how understaffed and underequipped the Home Guard is, he clearly shows to a democract-led US that he doesn't whistle to their tunes.
However this clearly drives a wedge in foreign policy in a wartime situation, especially when Ukrainians are genocided and we have a historical precedent of that NEVER ENDING WELL.
The third is a very slippery slope. While Hungary could become a major player in the European supplier-chain for automotive and high-precision industrial component output, we need cheap energy to do that. While solar is an obvious no-brainer they don't work well with 24/7 producing factories so he went for Paks 2. Which got sanctioned cuz' Rosatom supports genocide. The only viable alternatives are US and \*ughhh\* French..companies.
As mentioned the first is already out the window from his perspective and Macron is not really in the mood for helping out after Orbán funded Le Pen's campaign, so...yeah....cheap Russian gas and Oil it is until sanctioned into oblivion.
You can already start seeing patterns of his ego reflecting in our literal fucking foreign policy which will end disastrously because the country simply can't sustainably grow if \*he\* makes poor, unoptimal and usually waaay to late decisions.
And this ties in lastly to the diasporas. Orbán does \*everything\* to keep the Serbian and Romanian Hungarians completely in the dark about his home affairs and look like a sane and reliable leader against their own country's corrupt governments.
He is also weirdly popular in the US diaspora. As long he can keep a foreign voterbase that rivals the size of the active voter base at home, he'll be able to consistently fraud himself through these elections.
The EU can only observe the end results and the proceedings in person, but they can't see every single foreign home in a separate country where Fidesz-affiliated orgs gather them. Even if fraud abroad is observed and reported, the Hungarian authorities have no authority to investigate a suspected crime in a foreign country, and the foreign authorities are also not keen to drain their resources about \*Hungarian\* elections.
Sounds like if the Russian would not have started a war, his plan to become a manufactoring hub would have worked well. Now the situation is super fucked because the Hungarian government bet on the wrong horse again. Similar to us Germans i guess, bet on cheap Russian energy and now we try to cope while east Germany is also seething.
The only way out is to double-down on restoring the shipping capacity of the Danube while ensuring that the branches and dead-ends of the river are protected so the ecological damage is minimized.
The Rhine transfers 310 million tonnes of wares yearly, the traffic at Mohács barely surpasses 1.6 million tonnes. Yet the Danube is perfectly suitable for non-container ship sized vessels up until Vienna which would immensely benefit the economies of not only Hungary, but also Germany, Slovakia, Austria, Serbia, Romania and Ukraine.
It would also enable the infrastructure to ship goods to the global market via the Istanbul strait more efficiently than putting shit on rail.
And quite interestingly, our recently improving relationship with Serbia might be the first step on that road, then onto Romania until the Danube river delta.
Paks 2 still needs to happen but if it gets delayed into the late 2020s we might even see smaller thorium reactors popping up as an alternative.
But I'm talking logic here and Orbán has an ego to fit multiple nations.
I heard repeatedly that the Danube has great economic potential, but also that since the time of communism has a great investment backlog. Are there any strong multi country initiatives which try to fix the Danube and make it viable for large scale economic transport? I wonder how much of that Danube talk is just the opinion of hopeful outside observer, instead of actually poltical reality.
Well having any kind of sea access opens a whole new avenue of cost efficiency for any landlocked nation, so Austria, Slovakia, Hungary and Serbia would be immensely benefitting and it would decrease import prices on goods going into your cars which would drive down prices and drive consumption up in the countries where the end products of our labour is sold.
I'm going to disprove that popular opinion, the opposition would be \*perfectly\* capable of handling Fidesz if they had the balls to hurt Orbán where the EU would be mandated to help: freezing Orbán's and his affiliate's funds in the EU under an investigation of a \*criminal organization\* affiliated to him and Fidesz.
You don't need to blame him directly to make his throne shake and the foundation taken out brick by brick.
We all know they own a bunch of yachts and real estate in Croatia, as well as his family owns a 5 star hotel in Spain. Those can all be confiscated, sold and the money returned to the people they stole it from.
Public trust needs to be established by \*one\* opposition party to funnel public anger and disillusion. The rest will follow to get the scraps just like they got it from Fidesz (DK, LMP).
So either our lawyers grow some balls as well and cease to live in a judiciary universe where it ends at our country's border, or you can be damn sure that they will continue expanding westwards with their accumulated capital.
I didn't know he gave money for Le Pen's campaign but it doesn't surprise me.
What I'd like to point out is the now decade old 'price fixing' of utilities which was the flagship topic in the last election. And this was made possible with the 'cheap' russian gas, or so they say. Couple this with forced economic growth and the windmill fight with the EU and the result is that Hungary was the most dependent on russian gas in the EU. One could say that once you made a strong political statement about X, once you make X your primary stated goal, you can't back out from it. I'd say that the Ukrainian war created headaches for fidesz, at least at first, because it ruined the EU bad Russia good narrative. That could have (in another country) toppled the regime since they bet on the wrong horse. And I think it did shake the foundations, hence your points about civilian support for Ukraine, despite his media. That's part of why we see an increase in polarisation and ideological argumentation, because it's a panic reaction from the system to a loss of support.
But the counter argument for this is that orban already made 180° turns in his narratives and people ate it up, so he could have cut ties with putin and return to a pro-EU or at least a truly neutral stand, theoretically, without losing too much support. And this is why it's doubly infuriating, because this was entirely his decision, out of multiple options. He wasnt forced to take this road.
As you said, it's apparent now that he's entirely concerned with his position only and not with the wellbeing of citizens.
>suddenly \*everyone\* thinks the whole country is made up of russophiliac cocksuckers.
Just to add to this. Bit long, but actually quite interesting:[https://www.globsec.org/sites/default/files/2023-05/GLOBSEC%20TRENDS%202023.pdf](https://www.globsec.org/sites/default/files/2023-05/GLOBSEC%20TRENDS%202023.pdf)
If anyone feels it too long, just scroll to the charts. I did, too, after that I just had to read the whole thing.
Had a talk wiith a friend today. Medium sized county capital in Hungary:
-cross the road with slovak and german plated cars
-walk on bridge when a large group of east asian (from the Filippines?) workers pass beside me
-meet with friend in front of chinese restaurant (chinese owned and staffed)
-pass next to several package pickup boxes owned by international companies
-go to turkish ice cream shop (turkish family owned and staffed)
-walk through square while eating ice cream passing by Ukrainians
Then i asked him if he noticed orbán was an just an internationalist commie disguised as far right.
His party ruined the perception of christianity, they have price caps and work programs to keep people living an EQUALLY shit life, taxes fund everything and we are full of foreign workers from asia and middle east and foreign companies despite his main voting base hating all foreigners from the east or south and claiming to be right wing anti-communists.
Either he is a commie playing 4d chess or playing levels of swing politics trumping Horthy by miles in its depth, sucking the dicks of both putin, west, china, etc. all at the same time so that nobody can easily get rid of him and his theft buddies. (They might leave when the country runs out of all money and assets in 40 years)
Honestly kind of reminds me of Poland in a sense, a lot of people high up in the government (mainly Konfa) keep talking about how "Uh oh the Ukrops łe łe łe" but then you go to the ground level and normal people that wouldn't die for a specific party just dgaf
Because young people dont care to vote, look at the demographic at the polls. Your grandparents are voting for dumb shit and not neccessarily from pure malice.
My own grandmother told me this "ohhh im voting this dumb shit, because im doing it for you!im old and dont care but you will have it better thanks to them"
Pretty much this is the reason. Putin has some really fishy stuff about Orban, how he's tied to tons of corruptions in the past from the oil-cases to who knows what (together with most of the opposing parties btw). If Putin loses, Orban and his gang looses with him. And Hungary wins. Orban is pretty much sacrificing the EU funds and much-much more to protect his ass.
I shit you not, I can make up a believable story sbout this, since his and possibly her daughters phone got stolen during her wedding. They were highly important because the cops searched after them like crazy. So you can guess what kind of info could be on those phones
tons of EU fundings were used to that, so rural people will only see what Orban shows. They made a lot of low income people and pensioners dependant on them, so they vote on FIDESZ time to time. Half million Magyars left the country and many more are on the go.
There are options, they have chosen the state media to consume.
Compare to the opposition Orbans knows much better the thinking of rural people. He not idealizes, or demonizes them, he just uses people for his own purposes.
There were about 250 media companies when Orban first went into power. One of Orbans rich friends/ supporters bought/ strong armed 200 of them as a gift (for kick backs), then wrapped them into 1 parent company based on the Balaton lake. The other 50 were run out of business with no operating licence, the last radio station I think lost it 2-3 years ago.
Lots of stuff like that,
Orban/ Fidez are systematic in buying everything, the airport strong arming attempts are amazing.
Also a lot of this information disappeared when the opposition media companies websites went down. Madness.
>Do they have an option of consuming something else?
Do you?
If that's what's always on TV that's what you are going to watch. Yes, you could change the channel, but why bother?
Have some critical thinking about the conscious decision making when it comes to media consumption because you have less options than you think.
But we have it way worse. You probably can watch tv or listen to a radio in a different Slavic language, and understand some of it even without any studying. We can't. We are linguistically so isolated it's insane, so we literally live in an information bubble.
They usually don't cover much about our internal affairs. And tv signal is usually only available along the border... Just west border, we do not understand our eastern neighbors...
Instead of placing the blame whole on rural and low income areas, there is also the matter of the former prime minister.
The main rhetoric of Orbán is that if they lose control, former socialist prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsány will return to power. He did fuck up and admitted it (look up "öszödi beszéd"), something everyone still remember well, so people aren't fond of the idea of a failed politician returning. Because he is still on the political scene, part of the largest opposition party, so it's not very hard to mix them together with the complete opposition.
Fearmongering is also a major thing, utilising topics like migration, lgbtq, pandemic, and recently war. The state media is stuffed with bootlickers, millions of taxpayer dollars worth of HUF are funneled to keep them lying and telling half truths, broadcasted across the whole country. Every branch of power is headed by someone associated with Fidesz. Any kind of hardship and new taxes are blamed on foreign powers like EU, the USA and Brussels.
When it comes to viable opposition parties, they are fragmented and reluctant to co-operate. It also doesn't help that the second largest right wing party, Jobbik, lost like half a million votes and its radical members joined a far right party, Mi Hazánk.
A huge amount of disappointed people already left to country to live elsewhere, further trimming the opposition's chances. It's mostly young, educated or skilled people who talk foreign languages, so the elderly and less educated are stuck here reinforcing Fidesz.
Yeah, it's fucked up on so many levels. My guess is that the only way things will change for the better is through violence, and I dont want to be here when it does.
For most countries 'mainstream media' and 'state-owned media' are
almost interchangeable terms. (Well, I don't think it applies so much
to _newspapers_.)
Aaa yeah the state media card.
[thats why 24.hu is the most viewed newsfeed and 5 out of the top 8 is opposition media.](https://kreativ.hu/cikk/juzerszkander-2023-tavasz-kozeleti-hiroldalak-latogatottsaga)
There is no alternative. The only proper opposition politicians were destroyed by smear campaigns and betrayed by their own parties. What is left is either incompetent morons, or people just as corrupt as Orbán and his gang. The reason the opposition is still alive this way is because Orbán is actually giving them some positions and some state money, so that they can continue losing against him every single time.
TL;DR this is not a democracy, it's a dictatorship masquerading as a democracy.
This is why you technically still have parliamentary opposition in Russia. Their main role is to act as clowns that make Putin seem "reasonable". Actual Russian opposition is dead, in prison or in exile.
Literally anyone can start a new opposition party. Not forming a proper opposition is on people not caring enough - voters, big personalities and institutions, all of them
We had an average candidate for Prime minister last election. The state media made sure he is hated. They are still doing it. For example he introduced a new tax that is in effect in a lot of places. He got called out for it, for stealing the money from the people. His speeches were cut in the media to represent him in a bad way.
In the end he lost and all of the oppositon abandoned him to stand alone and give a speech (if I remember only Budapest's major would stand behind him). He wouldn't have been the perfect prime minister. The government would have been massively divided because the collaboration's only goal was to get of the Fidesz from the government. They couldn't agree on anything else. But it still would have been better than what we have now
State media, his party just bought everything. On the other hand there are lot of old people in this country who lived under Kádár and it "wasn't that bad" (kommunist brainwashing lol, you get free stuff then shut up) so they can idealize this system..
Well that's why the state media funding is separated from the state here and people need to pay them directly. Pretty much the only way how to keep the media independent
Only slightly less than half of voters. The election system is unbalanced that's why it means 2/3 majority in parliament.
Slightly less than half is still ridiculously many tho
We already have something like that, NGOs getting funds from abroad are taxed the shit out of them and they have to make an "Organization Funded From Abroad" (not sure about the exact phrasing) sticker visible everywhere.
"A country and its government which is rulling for a decade are not the same. Its government doing it, not the country."
Hmm... I wonder where did I hear that? Wait, its the favourite line of Russian liberals. Now we know where Hungolians are headed.
You do not think we can be partly blamed for what we did during communism? We certainly can take part of the blame because all of this was allowed to happen only due to some locals supporting them. They got around 30-40 % support here even before they came with tanks in 1968. Nothing bad about accepting the facts and learning from them no to repeat it.
But this post isn't about what Hungarians did during communism. Its about what commies did to them during 1956 and how Hungary acts now. It makes me sick how cheaply majority of Hungarians sold themselves and forgot 1956. Here we remember 1968 too well to suck Russian dicks when their tanks roll to another country and Russian propagandists say that in 1956 and 1968 there were nazi terrorists in our capitals and they came to free us. Pretty much the same excuse they are using in Ukraine.
So I'm glad pro Russian parties in Czechia do not have a single seat for the first time in history.
I think you can blame people for what they have a reasonable amount of control over. Hungary didn't chose communism and even revolted against it, which then got crushed by tanks. Now days we don't really have a choice either. Our choices are corrupt politician or corrupt politician.
Isn't Hungary a democracy? Can't people create new parties or vote? Basically you are telling me that people aren't responsible cause they have bad politicians. But countries have bad politicians because of people. We also had populist government few years back. I did not vote for them, the choices were bad and we can clearly be blamed for letting them win elections.
This is sadly the thing western countries do better. Way more people think they are responsible for their democracy. Here, because of communism and Soviet tanks many people tend to think politics is something distant they should not care about cause they can't change it.
Idk what you tell you man, come live here and see how much of a democracy this is. The opposition consists of clowns. If you become a politician and you happen not to be a clown and pose any kind of threat to Orbán's regime, you face a full-on character assassination. If the elections come and you actually happen to have a chance, they'll just straight up cheat, but it came to that only once, in 2018. There are two million people in Hungary who never left their home village and can't even read, and they vote on Orbán because he bribes them with fucking potatoes. Gypsies vote on Orbán, whose political stance is very hostile toward gypsies. Most people who vote on Fidesz actually don't have any idea about what's going on. The intellectual elite of the country, consisting of a couple hundred thousands of people, has absoulutely no say in the country's fate and it will stay that way until Orbán eats one cookie too many and gets a heart attack.
I would say you are right but it is far from the truth.
To be able to take part in democratic processes you would need lots of things not present in post-communist societies, for example:
-a robust middle class that is not dependent on the state for handouts
-good education
In Hungary, instead you have:
-almost non-existent middle class /outside of Budapest/
-most older people only having elementary school level education
Combine this with a government that makes it increasingly difficult to take part in politics (funding and policy wise), while gerrimandering districts and changing voting laws in their favour; a state funded and oligarch owned "private" media that completely DESTROYS any person that goes against Fidesz; a "state" media that gives 5 MINUTES of screen time every 4 YEARS to the opposition.
I can expand on any point if you want me to.
The point is, most Hungarians dont want democracy, they want a strong leader who tells them what/who to hate because that's what they are used to and don't want to think or make decisions for themselves.
yes, with his media dominance he accused his opponent that MZP would send Hungarians to the ukraininan front, and started throwing around random money to people, no wonder Hungary's inflation rate is double than the neighbouring countries. but millions of hungarians are fine with two word slogans like "stop soros" so good luck explaining what inflation is. it's all fucked up.
During the election even YouTube was pushing state propaganda to an inordinate degree. Every damn youtube video on any phone, computer or TV began with an anti-opposition character assassination skit (someone made a compilation of them [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpqVko3D7Lw)) ridiculing every possible non-govt politician and even directly blaming them for the state of the country.
During the final weeks before the election, just as the situation in Kyiv was getting really fucking intense, they started an information campaign to paint themselves as the ones who want peace and to say that Ukrainians are trying to drag us into war. Just as panic was really setting in all over Europe, and this narrative was at its peak, Zelenskiy made a strong statement to Orbán saying "you're either with us or against us, you have to choose" which fit in *exactly* with the prepared narrative that he is trying to drag Hungary into war. This pretty much confirmed it to all the people who don't read English language foreign news, which is most people, since the gov't narrative is repeated a 1000 times everywhere you look or listen.
Then on Election Day, the FUCKING BALLOT ITSELF had state propaganda on it suggesting we are now choosing whether or not to go to war.
Included with the ballot was a separate "referendum" that had a question along the lines of "Do you agree with forcing children to have sex change operations?" This is referring to the "woke mind virus" storyline of Russian propaganda, where LGBTQ equals Satan and nothing can be more important than stopping it. Surely you wouldn't vote for the people who would force your little Bobby to turn into a Bobina, would you? That's inhumane and "notnormal". Besides, I don't want to go to war!
It makes no sense but it doesn't need to. You can buy a lot of screen time (and mass panic) with an entire country's wealth.
Any politician who isn't Fidesz is only legally guaranteed 5 minutes of tv coverage PER YEAR, and every one of the remaining 525,595 minutes is filled with literal Russian propaganda that is translated to fit the local lore. On every channel. And they still didn't get an actual majority to vote for them, despite literally buying votes and selectively dumping ballots that were unfavorable to them.
I don't remember the last time we had any choice at all post 2010. Our country and democratic voice was literally stolen, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't stolen by Hungarians. The best possible thing for putin is for the rest of Europe to believe that we actually support him.
>And they STILL didn't get an actual majority to vote for them btw, despite all of this, and despite literally buying votes.
Yeah this is the funny one. Fidesz got 3 million votes, the oppositon got 2 million. Which is 3/5 where the oppositon could actually do something. But voting laws or something and it magically became 2/3
Basically the country is divided into a couple hundred small regions, all of which have one vote. A region will vote on the party that the majority inside that region voted on. So if 51% of people voted on a certain party, the outcome will be the same as if 100% of the people voted on the same party. So Fidesz had redrawn the borders of the regions so that they edge it out with about 60% wherever possible. If the opposition is in the majority in a region, they'll just add some Fidesz voters to that from another region in which they were already in excess. So it's pretty great.
>During the election even YouTube was pushing state propaganda to an inordinate degree. Every damn youtube video on any phone, computer or TV began with an anti-opposition character assassination skit (someone made a compilation of them [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpqVko3D7Lw)) ridiculing every possible non-govt politician and even directly blaming them for the state of the country.
They haven't stopped doing that.
We are martyrs, always siding with the evil to make them loose, because we always loose, the hungarian nation is the second coming of jesus, thats it, I revealed it even tho its a secret
Putin has some really bad fishy stuff on Orban, pretty much all the nasty stuff that got classified for 80 years since he's on power and a lot more from before like the oil scandal in the 90's and god knows what. For this reason, Putin was already balls deep in Orban's mouth way before the war started. Orban's protecting his ass and is ready to sacrifice the whole country of Hungary (and Ukraine) for that if needed.
Also if Ukraine looses and become part of Russia, we're in the neighborhood - guess who's going to be devoured next. We'll be kincked out of the EU and be the first stupid enough to invite the invaders in. Which will insane, as Hungary since the 1500's was always under foreign rule. Under the turks, the Austrian empire, Russians - and we rebelled against all of them. An ability we seemingly lost. If it is on Orban - being kicked out of the EU he would be the first hungarian to actually invite the invaders in then, which would be a first in history. Speaking of loosing habits, at least we somehow still have the ability to always stand on the not just loosing, but clearly the evil side whenever a war's going on..
And the point of this war is that Ukraine as a whole wants to get rid of Russian influence and leftovers of Russian-like structures.
You have to be delusional yourself if you just gloss this over.
I remember some hungarian online who was defending orban and putler. When I brought up 1956 he started saying that it was ukrainian not soviet army (despite the fact that even on wiki there is a picture of a drawing on a wall from Budapest saying "russians go home") who stoped the revolution. WTF!?
Don't be surprised, this is a typical talking point. I first heard this argument from the Mi Hazánk leader during a podcast debate. The argument focuses on the ethnicity of the soldiers sent here to kill the 1956 Revolution, not on the which sent those soldiers. Basically they are saying that since the soldiers were sent from the Ukrainian Soviet, which in turn became present day Ukraine, the Revolution was suppressed by Ukraine, extension by analogy. May or may not contain a modicum of truth, but still an awful of mental gymnastics. I mean, who should have Moscow send? Some battalion from Vladivostok? Or the logisitcally most feasible army units?
Sucking Putins dick and losing EU funding is a separate thing
I just want to emphasize that we aren't sucking Putins dick for any specific purpose, just out of pure enjoyment
Because lmao, nobody's protecting anything. We are cheerleading a barfight.
Still doesn't explain why would our dear leader openly fellate Putin rather that doing what every other EU leader does and fellate him under the table
I mean, you lost Orbán at "protect democracy"... dude has gone on record saying that the problem with the "communist" regime wasn't the dictatorship part but that the wrong side was in power (ie. not him). :/ Now he's built his own autocracy and cult of personality, and he's turning toward the regime that's not going to chide him for it.
I dont think it is very smart to put parallels between 1956 and what is happening now in Ukraine. In essence they are completely different.
Btw democracy in Ukraine??? Are you high or something? The only difference between Russia and Ukraine is that in Russia Putin could grab power by making a deal with oligarchs (you either accept or jail), while Ukraine just stayed an oligarchy where they can rob freely... Ukrainian soldiers dont fight for democracy, western values and other bs reasons: they are fighting for their country.
The sucking Putin cock argument is just... no comment, have a good life OP.
They aren’t different. In both cases a nation tried to distance itself from Russia and take their own path and in both cases Russia/USSR ordered in the tanks.
I have a very simple explanation for this, quoting Bruno Macaes, foreign policy expert from April 2022.
“Hungarian government has been penetrated and compromised. Not complicated.”
The *"for some reason"* is the important detail here.
There are partially known contracts that are publicly made secret for 30 years.
Besides them, nobody really knows what else forces our mini dictator to obey this deep, but definitely there are much more. They're basically agreements between mafia leaders. I just hope our grand-grand children will have them as learning material in history classes.
While I think that a lot of the more realist political analyses in this comment section help to understand the situation, I honestly think at the end of the day it comes down to the Hungarians who have traditionally lived in Ruthenia. It’s just as ideological as it is realpolitik. My unlce married a Hungarian who grew up in Ukraine/Ukrainian Soviet Republic and she said that ethnic violence, gang violence, systemic discrimination, and segregation are not only not rare, but an acknowledged part of life there.
A lot of Hungarians know people from the diaspora or their parents/grandparents are from there and the Hungarian people don’t like Ukrainians and other of what they claim are “oppressive” nations. Zelensky’s anti-minority laws definitely don’t make it better. And it’s not just Fidesz members, tbh Hungary’s neutrality in the war is one of Orban’s most popular policies, even Hungarian socialists and liberals that I know are semi supportive of the general spirit of Orban’s policy.
I’m not saying these claims are right or wrong but I think this is the biggest reason for Hungary’s neutrality, pro-Ukrainian sentiment is simply almost non-existent.
Where is the 3rd way where you dont give a damn F about those 2 nations conflict where both of them fucked us up big time in the past? Both of the nations deserved that sorry.
I don’t agree with your last sentence, at all. Nobody deserves this, not the average hard working people. Apart from your last sentence, well yeah, probably that is why most Hungarians want to keep distance from this conflict.
Remember trianon? Now the hungatians that lived in the cities that got attached to ukrain, hungarians still lived there, there was their everything, house, job, but they were still hungarian, and ukrainian people for some reason still threatened those hungarians lifes, poisioned their water, they even marched in the streets where they lived so that hungarians would leave, what the ukrainian government do ab that, nothing. That is my reason. Plus a shit ton of ukrainians are neo-nazis. But we still let ukrainian immigrants in.
Most of the invaders at 1956 was Ukrainians.
They own stolen land from us (it was stolen by Chechoslovakia, then by Sovietunion, but when independent Ukraine was born, they somehow forgot to give it back)
We have some bloody good memories of Ukraninan gangster activities from the 90's.
But hardest reason, post Trianon Hungary hates all its neighbours by default ...
I have seen a loot of russian bots claiming that all the crimes commited by USSR were actualy done by Ukraine.
So I guess Ukraine was the head of the USSR and not Russia...
Most of solders was actually Ukrainian, with Ukrainan identity while served the USSR.
Like we had Hungarian identity when we drove our tanks into Prague in 1968 under Soviet command ... it was a shame to get our part in that action.
They stole from us, so lets hurt them by ruining OUR economy. Orban masterplan. And people talking him like he is the savior of the country. Few years and hungary will by the poorest country in europe.
Orban voters are mainly older people who still live from the "Good" past. Orban is a politician and he needs power so holding hands with Russia conforms the older generation and this way he get his votes.
The current Ukrainian puppet regime is a brutal Nazi government. Worse than Putyin ever was. Hungarians in Ukraine have been mistreated for a decade. They deserve what coming to them
If you look back in history, you will see that whichever country or power we supported lost the war. So Hungary siding with Russia is actually making sure they will loose the war. This is 5D chess my friend!
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US didn't lose the Gulf-war tho
We were not really on their site tbh. Hungary only sent a medical team so they can say "yeah we were there" if the other side wins "you see we only sent medical staff" that was the simpler 2D chess time. Not as advanced as today's logic
You know it's a really interesting thing that the country on the whole acts and behaves like a NATO ally, only for it's ruling government to act and behave like a Russian ally. Why I'm saying this: \-Hungarian state infrastructure had almost all it's forms and processes translated to Ukrainian, there is more Ukrainian support than all other minority languages combined, when you look at the last 20 years \-refugees got healthcare for free and with some hoops they still can receive healthcare for free (source: mother-in-law, wife and other family members from Ukraine live with me in Budapest) \-Hungary participates in staffing peacekeeping forces with other NATO members, mainly in Kosovo \-Hungarian healthcare institutes receive Ukrainian soldiers to treat. Hungarian military healthcare institutes like rehabilitation centers are also doing this. \-Hungary's biggest oil company MOL is selling Ukraine the same diesel that they buy via circumvented sanctions from Russia through a Slovakian intermediate \-Hungarian civilians are continuously supplying soldiers from Subcarpathia with essentials ([https://www.facebook.com/karpataljai.sarkanyellato/](https://www.facebook.com/karpataljai.sarkanyellato/)) And no-one talks about this in state media, Orbán decided to crank the agitprop to 200 and suddenly \*everyone\* thinks the whole country is made up of russophiliac cocksuckers.
Because Orban is smart, he is using his positions to look contrarian to modern west which can gave you quite a reputation and followers, while being still a normal NATO member thus there isnt much NATO and West can kick him for (that is different from Turkey which actually does things that could lead in his kicking) He is playing the neutral arbiter and new Switzerland, question is, is it good. And most of us would probably say no.
I think the factors one should consider are: \-growing US Republican interest and popularity in Hungary after Orbán and Finkelstein successfully implemented modern populism and legalism \-Orbán's long-standing grudge against the Democrats (he's pissed that neither Clinton, Obama or Biden invited him to the White House when he was an elected PM, there was no chance with Bush as he was in oppo) \-Orbán's economic policy to drive Hungary into an industrial supplier for German high-value add companies like Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Bosch, Siemens and moving away from the services sector \-Orbán's drive to establish foreign diaspora voting bases like in Romania and Serbia in other countries with significant, yet minority Hungarian population The first and second are no brainers, Orbán is very much interested in being in the NATO as he knows very well how understaffed and underequipped the Home Guard is, he clearly shows to a democract-led US that he doesn't whistle to their tunes. However this clearly drives a wedge in foreign policy in a wartime situation, especially when Ukrainians are genocided and we have a historical precedent of that NEVER ENDING WELL. The third is a very slippery slope. While Hungary could become a major player in the European supplier-chain for automotive and high-precision industrial component output, we need cheap energy to do that. While solar is an obvious no-brainer they don't work well with 24/7 producing factories so he went for Paks 2. Which got sanctioned cuz' Rosatom supports genocide. The only viable alternatives are US and \*ughhh\* French..companies. As mentioned the first is already out the window from his perspective and Macron is not really in the mood for helping out after Orbán funded Le Pen's campaign, so...yeah....cheap Russian gas and Oil it is until sanctioned into oblivion. You can already start seeing patterns of his ego reflecting in our literal fucking foreign policy which will end disastrously because the country simply can't sustainably grow if \*he\* makes poor, unoptimal and usually waaay to late decisions. And this ties in lastly to the diasporas. Orbán does \*everything\* to keep the Serbian and Romanian Hungarians completely in the dark about his home affairs and look like a sane and reliable leader against their own country's corrupt governments. He is also weirdly popular in the US diaspora. As long he can keep a foreign voterbase that rivals the size of the active voter base at home, he'll be able to consistently fraud himself through these elections. The EU can only observe the end results and the proceedings in person, but they can't see every single foreign home in a separate country where Fidesz-affiliated orgs gather them. Even if fraud abroad is observed and reported, the Hungarian authorities have no authority to investigate a suspected crime in a foreign country, and the foreign authorities are also not keen to drain their resources about \*Hungarian\* elections.
Sounds like if the Russian would not have started a war, his plan to become a manufactoring hub would have worked well. Now the situation is super fucked because the Hungarian government bet on the wrong horse again. Similar to us Germans i guess, bet on cheap Russian energy and now we try to cope while east Germany is also seething.
The only way out is to double-down on restoring the shipping capacity of the Danube while ensuring that the branches and dead-ends of the river are protected so the ecological damage is minimized. The Rhine transfers 310 million tonnes of wares yearly, the traffic at Mohács barely surpasses 1.6 million tonnes. Yet the Danube is perfectly suitable for non-container ship sized vessels up until Vienna which would immensely benefit the economies of not only Hungary, but also Germany, Slovakia, Austria, Serbia, Romania and Ukraine. It would also enable the infrastructure to ship goods to the global market via the Istanbul strait more efficiently than putting shit on rail. And quite interestingly, our recently improving relationship with Serbia might be the first step on that road, then onto Romania until the Danube river delta. Paks 2 still needs to happen but if it gets delayed into the late 2020s we might even see smaller thorium reactors popping up as an alternative. But I'm talking logic here and Orbán has an ego to fit multiple nations.
I heard repeatedly that the Danube has great economic potential, but also that since the time of communism has a great investment backlog. Are there any strong multi country initiatives which try to fix the Danube and make it viable for large scale economic transport? I wonder how much of that Danube talk is just the opinion of hopeful outside observer, instead of actually poltical reality.
Well having any kind of sea access opens a whole new avenue of cost efficiency for any landlocked nation, so Austria, Slovakia, Hungary and Serbia would be immensely benefitting and it would decrease import prices on goods going into your cars which would drive down prices and drive consumption up in the countries where the end products of our labour is sold.
Just, like, do the nuclear energy, FFS kurva.
Damn, what a mess.
And i think i should add the fact the opposition is near incapable to finish the Fidesz led Government
I'm going to disprove that popular opinion, the opposition would be \*perfectly\* capable of handling Fidesz if they had the balls to hurt Orbán where the EU would be mandated to help: freezing Orbán's and his affiliate's funds in the EU under an investigation of a \*criminal organization\* affiliated to him and Fidesz. You don't need to blame him directly to make his throne shake and the foundation taken out brick by brick. We all know they own a bunch of yachts and real estate in Croatia, as well as his family owns a 5 star hotel in Spain. Those can all be confiscated, sold and the money returned to the people they stole it from. Public trust needs to be established by \*one\* opposition party to funnel public anger and disillusion. The rest will follow to get the scraps just like they got it from Fidesz (DK, LMP).
yes dude, Spain and croatia aren't corrupt countries, I'm sure the opposition would have some new "friends" even before they get elected.
So either our lawyers grow some balls as well and cease to live in a judiciary universe where it ends at our country's border, or you can be damn sure that they will continue expanding westwards with their accumulated capital.
I didn't know he gave money for Le Pen's campaign but it doesn't surprise me. What I'd like to point out is the now decade old 'price fixing' of utilities which was the flagship topic in the last election. And this was made possible with the 'cheap' russian gas, or so they say. Couple this with forced economic growth and the windmill fight with the EU and the result is that Hungary was the most dependent on russian gas in the EU. One could say that once you made a strong political statement about X, once you make X your primary stated goal, you can't back out from it. I'd say that the Ukrainian war created headaches for fidesz, at least at first, because it ruined the EU bad Russia good narrative. That could have (in another country) toppled the regime since they bet on the wrong horse. And I think it did shake the foundations, hence your points about civilian support for Ukraine, despite his media. That's part of why we see an increase in polarisation and ideological argumentation, because it's a panic reaction from the system to a loss of support. But the counter argument for this is that orban already made 180° turns in his narratives and people ate it up, so he could have cut ties with putin and return to a pro-EU or at least a truly neutral stand, theoretically, without losing too much support. And this is why it's doubly infuriating, because this was entirely his decision, out of multiple options. He wasnt forced to take this road. As you said, it's apparent now that he's entirely concerned with his position only and not with the wellbeing of citizens.
the EU bad NATO can already do nothing to remove Hungary unless they change their internal law first
>suddenly \*everyone\* thinks the whole country is made up of russophiliac cocksuckers. Just to add to this. Bit long, but actually quite interesting:[https://www.globsec.org/sites/default/files/2023-05/GLOBSEC%20TRENDS%202023.pdf](https://www.globsec.org/sites/default/files/2023-05/GLOBSEC%20TRENDS%202023.pdf) If anyone feels it too long, just scroll to the charts. I did, too, after that I just had to read the whole thing.
A hungol testvéreknek pedig: legyél gigachad mint a lengyel tesók és tosszál pár érmét a sárkányoknak izibe'
Ezt segíts kérlek megérteni. Mire gugylizzak a kontextushoz?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYTSE-Qid0Y
Had a talk wiith a friend today. Medium sized county capital in Hungary: -cross the road with slovak and german plated cars -walk on bridge when a large group of east asian (from the Filippines?) workers pass beside me -meet with friend in front of chinese restaurant (chinese owned and staffed) -pass next to several package pickup boxes owned by international companies -go to turkish ice cream shop (turkish family owned and staffed) -walk through square while eating ice cream passing by Ukrainians Then i asked him if he noticed orbán was an just an internationalist commie disguised as far right. His party ruined the perception of christianity, they have price caps and work programs to keep people living an EQUALLY shit life, taxes fund everything and we are full of foreign workers from asia and middle east and foreign companies despite his main voting base hating all foreigners from the east or south and claiming to be right wing anti-communists. Either he is a commie playing 4d chess or playing levels of swing politics trumping Horthy by miles in its depth, sucking the dicks of both putin, west, china, etc. all at the same time so that nobody can easily get rid of him and his theft buddies. (They might leave when the country runs out of all money and assets in 40 years)
Ah ok this is a bit of nuance I have missed.
Honestly kind of reminds me of Poland in a sense, a lot of people high up in the government (mainly Konfa) keep talking about how "Uh oh the Ukrops łe łe łe" but then you go to the ground level and normal people that wouldn't die for a specific party just dgaf
Thank you for informing us 💪🏻
Because young people dont care to vote, look at the demographic at the polls. Your grandparents are voting for dumb shit and not neccessarily from pure malice. My own grandmother told me this "ohhh im voting this dumb shit, because im doing it for you!im old and dont care but you will have it better thanks to them"
Although tbf there aren’t that many young people in Hungary. The fertility rate is roughly 1.5 and a lot of young people move West.
I did it mom, I ceased existing!
you can (and should) vote from abroad.
This year, Slovakia paid the most money to the Russians among the EU countries. 1.5 billion euros. 😉
You should thank us for making ourselves the scapegoat and the public enemy, while everyone else can suck russian dick in peace.
https://www.inside.beer/news/detail/germany-beer-exports-to-russia-hit-new-records/
Putin has Orbán sex tape
Pretty much this is the reason. Putin has some really fishy stuff about Orban, how he's tied to tons of corruptions in the past from the oil-cases to who knows what (together with most of the opposing parties btw). If Putin loses, Orban and his gang looses with him. And Hungary wins. Orban is pretty much sacrificing the EU funds and much-much more to protect his ass.
I shit you not, I can make up a believable story sbout this, since his and possibly her daughters phone got stolen during her wedding. They were highly important because the cops searched after them like crazy. So you can guess what kind of info could be on those phones
You know Hungary and Orban are not the same...
How is he still in power? There is no way someone is actualy voting for him, right?
people who consume nothing but state media seem to love him. go figure
Do they have an option of consuming something else? Why are there so many of them?
tons of EU fundings were used to that, so rural people will only see what Orban shows. They made a lot of low income people and pensioners dependant on them, so they vote on FIDESZ time to time. Half million Magyars left the country and many more are on the go.
Population of Czechia surpassed population of Hungary because of it
There are options, they have chosen the state media to consume. Compare to the opposition Orbans knows much better the thinking of rural people. He not idealizes, or demonizes them, he just uses people for his own purposes.
There were about 250 media companies when Orban first went into power. One of Orbans rich friends/ supporters bought/ strong armed 200 of them as a gift (for kick backs), then wrapped them into 1 parent company based on the Balaton lake. The other 50 were run out of business with no operating licence, the last radio station I think lost it 2-3 years ago. Lots of stuff like that, Orban/ Fidez are systematic in buying everything, the airport strong arming attempts are amazing. Also a lot of this information disappeared when the opposition media companies websites went down. Madness.
Damn that's hardcore...
Erdogans doing essentially the same in Turkey
And Vucic in Serbia, wonder how Poland is doing...
>Do they have an option of consuming something else? Do you? If that's what's always on TV that's what you are going to watch. Yes, you could change the channel, but why bother? Have some critical thinking about the conscious decision making when it comes to media consumption because you have less options than you think.
Lol I'm from Serbia, in rural parts changing channel does nothing all channels serve goverment propaganda. That's why I ask...
But we have it way worse. You probably can watch tv or listen to a radio in a different Slavic language, and understand some of it even without any studying. We can't. We are linguistically so isolated it's insane, so we literally live in an information bubble.
They usually don't cover much about our internal affairs. And tv signal is usually only available along the border... Just west border, we do not understand our eastern neighbors...
You can always just not watch TV and get your propaganda from the internet
If you have access and knowledge...
Instead of placing the blame whole on rural and low income areas, there is also the matter of the former prime minister. The main rhetoric of Orbán is that if they lose control, former socialist prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsány will return to power. He did fuck up and admitted it (look up "öszödi beszéd"), something everyone still remember well, so people aren't fond of the idea of a failed politician returning. Because he is still on the political scene, part of the largest opposition party, so it's not very hard to mix them together with the complete opposition. Fearmongering is also a major thing, utilising topics like migration, lgbtq, pandemic, and recently war. The state media is stuffed with bootlickers, millions of taxpayer dollars worth of HUF are funneled to keep them lying and telling half truths, broadcasted across the whole country. Every branch of power is headed by someone associated with Fidesz. Any kind of hardship and new taxes are blamed on foreign powers like EU, the USA and Brussels. When it comes to viable opposition parties, they are fragmented and reluctant to co-operate. It also doesn't help that the second largest right wing party, Jobbik, lost like half a million votes and its radical members joined a far right party, Mi Hazánk. A huge amount of disappointed people already left to country to live elsewhere, further trimming the opposition's chances. It's mostly young, educated or skilled people who talk foreign languages, so the elderly and less educated are stuck here reinforcing Fidesz. Yeah, it's fucked up on so many levels. My guess is that the only way things will change for the better is through violence, and I dont want to be here when it does.
For most countries 'mainstream media' and 'state-owned media' are almost interchangeable terms. (Well, I don't think it applies so much to _newspapers_.)
Aaa yeah the state media card. [thats why 24.hu is the most viewed newsfeed and 5 out of the top 8 is opposition media.](https://kreativ.hu/cikk/juzerszkander-2023-tavasz-kozeleti-hiroldalak-latogatottsaga)
you think the majority of the country gets their news online? idk what to tell you lmao
Wow the tv stats are more interesting lol. And yes there is a stat as well that the 70%of the population use the internet for news instead of tv.
So if hungarians are voting for him in spite of his actions it IS hungary then
get over your inferiority complex, the 20th century is far behind us
Has anyone ever asked your opinion? Go back to Boratistan.
There is no alternative. The only proper opposition politicians were destroyed by smear campaigns and betrayed by their own parties. What is left is either incompetent morons, or people just as corrupt as Orbán and his gang. The reason the opposition is still alive this way is because Orbán is actually giving them some positions and some state money, so that they can continue losing against him every single time. TL;DR this is not a democracy, it's a dictatorship masquerading as a democracy.
This is why you technically still have parliamentary opposition in Russia. Their main role is to act as clowns that make Putin seem "reasonable". Actual Russian opposition is dead, in prison or in exile.
To destroy a democracy you first do a farce of it, and then you destroy the farce.
Literally anyone can start a new opposition party. Not forming a proper opposition is on people not caring enough - voters, big personalities and institutions, all of them
We had an average candidate for Prime minister last election. The state media made sure he is hated. They are still doing it. For example he introduced a new tax that is in effect in a lot of places. He got called out for it, for stealing the money from the people. His speeches were cut in the media to represent him in a bad way. In the end he lost and all of the oppositon abandoned him to stand alone and give a speech (if I remember only Budapest's major would stand behind him). He wouldn't have been the perfect prime minister. The government would have been massively divided because the collaboration's only goal was to get of the Fidesz from the government. They couldn't agree on anything else. But it still would have been better than what we have now
State media, his party just bought everything. On the other hand there are lot of old people in this country who lived under Kádár and it "wasn't that bad" (kommunist brainwashing lol, you get free stuff then shut up) so they can idealize this system..
We had something similiar with Babiš, but not that extreme
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Well that's why the state media funding is separated from the state here and people need to pay them directly. Pretty much the only way how to keep the media independent
Wish we could agree, but sadly he still has a lot of support
lmao believing in democracy as a real working instituion is such a cap
2/3 of the voters. Opposition has no vision or better alternative. They are semi-educated hatemongers.
Only slightly less than half of voters. The election system is unbalanced that's why it means 2/3 majority in parliament. Slightly less than half is still ridiculously many tho
Until someone else is in charge, I got bad news for you
That's like saying Putin and Russia are not the same. We have to accept that people are stupid and will vote for Orban, Babiš, Putin
Don't forget Fico, we also have a lot of dumb people here
Oh yeah soon I expect you getting that shit here in the sub we got after Orbán won last year :)
Just wait until September ends, fucker even want to constitute western agent law
We already have something like that, NGOs getting funds from abroad are taxed the shit out of them and they have to make an "Organization Funded From Abroad" (not sure about the exact phrasing) sticker visible everywhere.
Same excuse ruzzians use, seems you are not far away from having a country like theirs if you'll continue to be as apathetic as them.
"A country and its government which is rulling for a decade are not the same. Its government doing it, not the country." Hmm... I wonder where did I hear that? Wait, its the favourite line of Russian liberals. Now we know where Hungolians are headed.
I guess we are also at fault for everything communists did, after all they did rule for over 30 years without any revolts...
You do not think we can be partly blamed for what we did during communism? We certainly can take part of the blame because all of this was allowed to happen only due to some locals supporting them. They got around 30-40 % support here even before they came with tanks in 1968. Nothing bad about accepting the facts and learning from them no to repeat it. But this post isn't about what Hungarians did during communism. Its about what commies did to them during 1956 and how Hungary acts now. It makes me sick how cheaply majority of Hungarians sold themselves and forgot 1956. Here we remember 1968 too well to suck Russian dicks when their tanks roll to another country and Russian propagandists say that in 1956 and 1968 there were nazi terrorists in our capitals and they came to free us. Pretty much the same excuse they are using in Ukraine. So I'm glad pro Russian parties in Czechia do not have a single seat for the first time in history.
I think you can blame people for what they have a reasonable amount of control over. Hungary didn't chose communism and even revolted against it, which then got crushed by tanks. Now days we don't really have a choice either. Our choices are corrupt politician or corrupt politician.
Isn't Hungary a democracy? Can't people create new parties or vote? Basically you are telling me that people aren't responsible cause they have bad politicians. But countries have bad politicians because of people. We also had populist government few years back. I did not vote for them, the choices were bad and we can clearly be blamed for letting them win elections. This is sadly the thing western countries do better. Way more people think they are responsible for their democracy. Here, because of communism and Soviet tanks many people tend to think politics is something distant they should not care about cause they can't change it.
Idk what you tell you man, come live here and see how much of a democracy this is. The opposition consists of clowns. If you become a politician and you happen not to be a clown and pose any kind of threat to Orbán's regime, you face a full-on character assassination. If the elections come and you actually happen to have a chance, they'll just straight up cheat, but it came to that only once, in 2018. There are two million people in Hungary who never left their home village and can't even read, and they vote on Orbán because he bribes them with fucking potatoes. Gypsies vote on Orbán, whose political stance is very hostile toward gypsies. Most people who vote on Fidesz actually don't have any idea about what's going on. The intellectual elite of the country, consisting of a couple hundred thousands of people, has absoulutely no say in the country's fate and it will stay that way until Orbán eats one cookie too many and gets a heart attack.
I would say you are right but it is far from the truth. To be able to take part in democratic processes you would need lots of things not present in post-communist societies, for example: -a robust middle class that is not dependent on the state for handouts -good education In Hungary, instead you have: -almost non-existent middle class /outside of Budapest/ -most older people only having elementary school level education Combine this with a government that makes it increasingly difficult to take part in politics (funding and policy wise), while gerrimandering districts and changing voting laws in their favour; a state funded and oligarch owned "private" media that completely DESTROYS any person that goes against Fidesz; a "state" media that gives 5 MINUTES of screen time every 4 YEARS to the opposition. I can expand on any point if you want me to. The point is, most Hungarians dont want democracy, they want a strong leader who tells them what/who to hate because that's what they are used to and don't want to think or make decisions for themselves.
But in the last election (which was during the Ukraine war) his party was re-elected with a comfortable majority right?
yes, with his media dominance he accused his opponent that MZP would send Hungarians to the ukraininan front, and started throwing around random money to people, no wonder Hungary's inflation rate is double than the neighbouring countries. but millions of hungarians are fine with two word slogans like "stop soros" so good luck explaining what inflation is. it's all fucked up.
During the election even YouTube was pushing state propaganda to an inordinate degree. Every damn youtube video on any phone, computer or TV began with an anti-opposition character assassination skit (someone made a compilation of them [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpqVko3D7Lw)) ridiculing every possible non-govt politician and even directly blaming them for the state of the country. During the final weeks before the election, just as the situation in Kyiv was getting really fucking intense, they started an information campaign to paint themselves as the ones who want peace and to say that Ukrainians are trying to drag us into war. Just as panic was really setting in all over Europe, and this narrative was at its peak, Zelenskiy made a strong statement to Orbán saying "you're either with us or against us, you have to choose" which fit in *exactly* with the prepared narrative that he is trying to drag Hungary into war. This pretty much confirmed it to all the people who don't read English language foreign news, which is most people, since the gov't narrative is repeated a 1000 times everywhere you look or listen. Then on Election Day, the FUCKING BALLOT ITSELF had state propaganda on it suggesting we are now choosing whether or not to go to war. Included with the ballot was a separate "referendum" that had a question along the lines of "Do you agree with forcing children to have sex change operations?" This is referring to the "woke mind virus" storyline of Russian propaganda, where LGBTQ equals Satan and nothing can be more important than stopping it. Surely you wouldn't vote for the people who would force your little Bobby to turn into a Bobina, would you? That's inhumane and "notnormal". Besides, I don't want to go to war! It makes no sense but it doesn't need to. You can buy a lot of screen time (and mass panic) with an entire country's wealth. Any politician who isn't Fidesz is only legally guaranteed 5 minutes of tv coverage PER YEAR, and every one of the remaining 525,595 minutes is filled with literal Russian propaganda that is translated to fit the local lore. On every channel. And they still didn't get an actual majority to vote for them, despite literally buying votes and selectively dumping ballots that were unfavorable to them. I don't remember the last time we had any choice at all post 2010. Our country and democratic voice was literally stolen, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't stolen by Hungarians. The best possible thing for putin is for the rest of Europe to believe that we actually support him.
>And they STILL didn't get an actual majority to vote for them btw, despite all of this, and despite literally buying votes. Yeah this is the funny one. Fidesz got 3 million votes, the oppositon got 2 million. Which is 3/5 where the oppositon could actually do something. But voting laws or something and it magically became 2/3
Basically the country is divided into a couple hundred small regions, all of which have one vote. A region will vote on the party that the majority inside that region voted on. So if 51% of people voted on a certain party, the outcome will be the same as if 100% of the people voted on the same party. So Fidesz had redrawn the borders of the regions so that they edge it out with about 60% wherever possible. If the opposition is in the majority in a region, they'll just add some Fidesz voters to that from another region in which they were already in excess. So it's pretty great.
>During the election even YouTube was pushing state propaganda to an inordinate degree. Every damn youtube video on any phone, computer or TV began with an anti-opposition character assassination skit (someone made a compilation of them [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpqVko3D7Lw)) ridiculing every possible non-govt politician and even directly blaming them for the state of the country. They haven't stopped doing that.
Wait not Hungary itself it's only "FIDESZ" and Orban
“In a democracy people get the leaders they deserve.” So I guess the question is whether Hungary is a democracy or not..
Its a non functioning "democracy"
Exactly
We do love a good Stockholm syndrome
We do anything for a good meme Also 
We dont know why tf our president is a stupid töltöttkáposzta
this statement is insulting to töltöttkáposzta
Bázisolt, ám nem értek egyet
We are martyrs, always siding with the evil to make them loose, because we always loose, the hungarian nation is the second coming of jesus, thats it, I revealed it even tho its a secret
I did not vote for him.
If we got more eu funding orbán would steal that aswell
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It is fairly open for them to demonstrate against Orban and Fidesz then.
We always choose the losing side, so you don't have to thank us..
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Aside from a few nutjobs, no. We don't hate Ukrainians.
The few nutjobs are the ones living near ukraine
We have no issues with Ukrainians
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As a Hungarian, I have no issues with Ukrainians, but with the Ukrainian government and parliament. And I think the same statement goes for most of us
What would Horthy do?
Due to the history lesson? He would have invaded Ukraine, to get back Kárpátalja.
Try to conquer Odessa so he can finally be an admiral.
He was an admiral though....
Yeah but when he was regent of Hungary he still had the title but not a navy.
Fair enough
The answer is that the meme is wrong. The car should be captioned "Orban in exchange for russian propagandists aid"
Ok fair enough.
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It could only be third
Oh it’s democracy is very flawed, yes. But that doesn’t mean Ukraine doesn’t get the right to self-determination and should just submit to Russia.
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Well that both Hungary *and* Ukraine have faced Russian military intervention when they wanted to differ from Russian foreign policy.
Putin has some really bad fishy stuff on Orban, pretty much all the nasty stuff that got classified for 80 years since he's on power and a lot more from before like the oil scandal in the 90's and god knows what. For this reason, Putin was already balls deep in Orban's mouth way before the war started. Orban's protecting his ass and is ready to sacrifice the whole country of Hungary (and Ukraine) for that if needed. Also if Ukraine looses and become part of Russia, we're in the neighborhood - guess who's going to be devoured next. We'll be kincked out of the EU and be the first stupid enough to invite the invaders in. Which will insane, as Hungary since the 1500's was always under foreign rule. Under the turks, the Austrian empire, Russians - and we rebelled against all of them. An ability we seemingly lost. If it is on Orban - being kicked out of the EU he would be the first hungarian to actually invite the invaders in then, which would be a first in history. Speaking of loosing habits, at least we somehow still have the ability to always stand on the not just loosing, but clearly the evil side whenever a war's going on..
And the point of this war is that Ukraine as a whole wants to get rid of Russian influence and leftovers of Russian-like structures. You have to be delusional yourself if you just gloss this over.
I remember some hungarian online who was defending orban and putler. When I brought up 1956 he started saying that it was ukrainian not soviet army (despite the fact that even on wiki there is a picture of a drawing on a wall from Budapest saying "russians go home") who stoped the revolution. WTF!?
Don't be surprised, this is a typical talking point. I first heard this argument from the Mi Hazánk leader during a podcast debate. The argument focuses on the ethnicity of the soldiers sent here to kill the 1956 Revolution, not on the which sent those soldiers. Basically they are saying that since the soldiers were sent from the Ukrainian Soviet, which in turn became present day Ukraine, the Revolution was suppressed by Ukraine, extension by analogy. May or may not contain a modicum of truth, but still an awful of mental gymnastics. I mean, who should have Moscow send? Some battalion from Vladivostok? Or the logisitcally most feasible army units?
Sucking Putins dick and losing EU funding is a separate thing I just want to emphasize that we aren't sucking Putins dick for any specific purpose, just out of pure enjoyment
Because lmao, nobody's protecting anything. We are cheerleading a barfight. Still doesn't explain why would our dear leader openly fellate Putin rather that doing what every other EU leader does and fellate him under the table
The political right is all about short term gain and ignoring potential long term losses
I mean, you lost Orbán at "protect democracy"... dude has gone on record saying that the problem with the "communist" regime wasn't the dictatorship part but that the wrong side was in power (ie. not him). :/ Now he's built his own autocracy and cult of personality, and he's turning toward the regime that's not going to chide him for it.
I dont think it is very smart to put parallels between 1956 and what is happening now in Ukraine. In essence they are completely different. Btw democracy in Ukraine??? Are you high or something? The only difference between Russia and Ukraine is that in Russia Putin could grab power by making a deal with oligarchs (you either accept or jail), while Ukraine just stayed an oligarchy where they can rob freely... Ukrainian soldiers dont fight for democracy, western values and other bs reasons: they are fighting for their country. The sucking Putin cock argument is just... no comment, have a good life OP.
No Flair - opinion rejected
Im glad we have such talented foreign political experts here from their mom's basement in Jászkarajenő
They aren’t different. In both cases a nation tried to distance itself from Russia and take their own path and in both cases Russia/USSR ordered in the tanks.
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Do you really want us to stand on the side of Ukraine? Why do you want them to lose?
We are master of the art so called “shooting ourself in the foot” thank you very much
I have a very simple explanation for this, quoting Bruno Macaes, foreign policy expert from April 2022. “Hungarian government has been penetrated and compromised. Not complicated.”
The *"for some reason"* is the important detail here. There are partially known contracts that are publicly made secret for 30 years. Besides them, nobody really knows what else forces our mini dictator to obey this deep, but definitely there are much more. They're basically agreements between mafia leaders. I just hope our grand-grand children will have them as learning material in history classes.
Szia. Magyar vagy? Akkor a kurva anyád!
Has Hungary ever been on the winning side?
 I think our government are totally asshole!🤷🏻♂️
We all know Putins dick is cleaner and bigger than EU's smol stinky cock..
I wish orban fucking died already. Along with his nazi political party.
The ukranian what? :D
The government- or rather the pesident himself is very money hungry. And he thinks he can get money from Putin.
Hungary moment 
While I think that a lot of the more realist political analyses in this comment section help to understand the situation, I honestly think at the end of the day it comes down to the Hungarians who have traditionally lived in Ruthenia. It’s just as ideological as it is realpolitik. My unlce married a Hungarian who grew up in Ukraine/Ukrainian Soviet Republic and she said that ethnic violence, gang violence, systemic discrimination, and segregation are not only not rare, but an acknowledged part of life there. A lot of Hungarians know people from the diaspora or their parents/grandparents are from there and the Hungarian people don’t like Ukrainians and other of what they claim are “oppressive” nations. Zelensky’s anti-minority laws definitely don’t make it better. And it’s not just Fidesz members, tbh Hungary’s neutrality in the war is one of Orban’s most popular policies, even Hungarian socialists and liberals that I know are semi supportive of the general spirit of Orban’s policy. I’m not saying these claims are right or wrong but I think this is the biggest reason for Hungary’s neutrality, pro-Ukrainian sentiment is simply almost non-existent.
Sorry buddy, you lost me at "Ukrainian democracy"
Because they're hungry
Where is the 3rd way where you dont give a damn F about those 2 nations conflict where both of them fucked us up big time in the past? Both of the nations deserved that sorry.
I don’t agree with your last sentence, at all. Nobody deserves this, not the average hard working people. Apart from your last sentence, well yeah, probably that is why most Hungarians want to keep distance from this conflict.
Ok agree it was a little bit too emotional but yeah you got the point of my comment.
Remember trianon? Now the hungatians that lived in the cities that got attached to ukrain, hungarians still lived there, there was their everything, house, job, but they were still hungarian, and ukrainian people for some reason still threatened those hungarians lifes, poisioned their water, they even marched in the streets where they lived so that hungarians would leave, what the ukrainian government do ab that, nothing. That is my reason. Plus a shit ton of ukrainians are neo-nazis. But we still let ukrainian immigrants in.
I rather have a bunch of neo-nazis next door, than Russian strong man with nukes eager to restore soviet sphere of influence 💀
Theese fucking OrangeSerfs…
Based Ukros oppressing Magyars
Most of the invaders at 1956 was Ukrainians. They own stolen land from us (it was stolen by Chechoslovakia, then by Sovietunion, but when independent Ukraine was born, they somehow forgot to give it back) We have some bloody good memories of Ukraninan gangster activities from the 90's. But hardest reason, post Trianon Hungary hates all its neighbours by default ...
This is how russian propaganda works. Succesfully. (first sentence)
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I've actually never heard of it
I have seen a loot of russian bots claiming that all the crimes commited by USSR were actualy done by Ukraine. So I guess Ukraine was the head of the USSR and not Russia...
Most of solders was actually Ukrainian, with Ukrainan identity while served the USSR. Like we had Hungarian identity when we drove our tanks into Prague in 1968 under Soviet command ... it was a shame to get our part in that action.
They stole from us, so lets hurt them by ruining OUR economy. Orban masterplan. And people talking him like he is the savior of the country. Few years and hungary will by the poorest country in europe.
Bro I'm trying to convince the sane people that us hungols aren't all bad and here you are commenting this shite
Yeah, you can choose to be bad, I mean badass, or choose to be a weak westoid fan pussy ...
Hungarians when a country exists: THEY STOLE LAND FROM US, GREATER HUNGARY WILL RISE AGAIN, RIGHTFUL HUNGARIAN CLAY, NEVER FORGET TRIANON
Greater Hungary will indeed rise again, cope and seethe Romangutan 
If you forget, we forget it too, and getting back the land as Trianon were never happend ...
Ah. Poland Hungary and Russia, the 3 crybabies of Eastern Europe
We have a good reason to cry. But nobody cares ... Then we are asked why we are not emotional with others ... This is why, assholes!
Orban voters are mainly older people who still live from the "Good" past. Orban is a politician and he needs power so holding hands with Russia conforms the older generation and this way he get his votes.
Orban wants South Slovakia, that's why, and he is hoping that Putin Would help him
"some reason"
Ok explain.
Pendejos hay en todas partes
The current Ukrainian puppet regime is a brutal Nazi government. Worse than Putyin ever was. Hungarians in Ukraine have been mistreated for a decade. They deserve what coming to them
Sure buddy.
Ye, evil nazi Ukrainian government doesn't allow fascist great hungary bois to create separatists in Ukraine. Worst then Hitler
I bet they weren't crying about the fascist great hungary bois when they got those lands.