Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán has issued a new warning about rising tensions in Europe, saying that world wars are never called world wars in the beginning, noting that the First and Second World Wars were initiated by a series of smaller conflicts.
“Brussels is playing with fire. What it is doing is an act of temptation. World wars are never called world wars in the beginning. The Third Balkan War, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the partition of Poland, and the end was a world war twice over,” he warned.
Tensions are rising in Europe, Orbán said in a post on his Facebook page on Sunday, pointing out that the mood on the continent is one of war, and that politics is dominated by the logic of war.
“The NATO secretary-general wants to set up a NATO-Ukraine mission. European leaders have already fallen into war, they see this war as their own war and are fighting it as their own war,” he said.
“At first, it was only about sending helmets. Then sanctions, but not on energy producers! Then, yes, on those too. Then, came the arms shipments. First firearms, then tanks, then planes, and then financial aid. More and more, tens of billions. Now, we’re somewhere around a 100 billion — in euros. Money, supplies, weapons, but the situation is not getting better, it’s getting worse,” the prime minister said.
Orbán reiterated a warning he has now issued a number of times, saying that Europe is one step away from the West sending troops to Ukraine. He said that Brussels is promoting a “war vortex” that could drag Europe into the abyss.
At the end of his post, Orbán stressed that Hungarians know what war is like, referring to the devastating period of destruction Hungary faced during the Second World War and the subsequent decades-long occupation of Hungary by Soviet forces, including a crushed uprising against communist rule in 1956.
At the same time, Orbán stated Hungary’s position: “This is not our war. We do not want war, and we do not want Hungary to become the plaything of great powers again.”
“That is why we have to stand up for peace — at home, in Brussels, in Washington, in the UN and in NATO,” Orbán concluded his post.