Orban: The fear that Russia would attack any NATO member is unfounded

The fear that Russia would attack any NATO member is unfounded, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said today, adding that the war in Ukraine, which has been going on for the third year, has shown the limits of Russia's capabilities, Reuters reports.

Hungary, a member of the European Union and NATO, has refused to provide military aid to Ukraine since the invasion of Russia in February 2022.

Official Budapest is also seeking to abandon a long-term NATO aid plan for Ukraine, with its foreign minister calling it a "crazy mission".

Reuters reports that nationalist Orban, who has been in power since 2010, has made his campaign for next month's European Parliament election on the agenda of avoiding deeper involvement in the conflict, saying the vote could determine the course of war and peace in Europe.

"The Russian army is waging a serious and difficult war with the Ukrainians. If the Russians were strong enough to crush the Ukrainians in one move, they would have already done it," Orban said in an interview with public radio.

He said that NATO's military capabilities far exceed those of Ukraine, so it is unlikely that Russia or any other country will launch an attack on NATO.

"I do not consider it logical that Russia, which cannot even defeat Ukraine, suddenly comes and swallows the Western world as a whole. The chances of this are extremely small," Orban said.

He said that he considers the reference to the Russian threat to be a prelude to deeper involvement of the West in the war in Ukraine.

Relations between Budapest and Washington have deteriorated due to Hungary's delay in ratifying Sweden's accession to NATO, as well as Orban's cordial ties with Moscow despite the war in Ukraine, Reuters concludes.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said in January that increasingly belligerent Russian President Vladimir Putin could attack the NATO military alliance in less than a decade.

Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kalas said in an interview with the British newspaper The Times that was also published in January that Europe has between three and five years to prepare for the Kremlin's return as a serious military threat on NATO's eastern flank.

At the end of March, Putin addressed the pilots of the Russian Air Force and said that Russia has no plans for any NATO country and that it will not attack Poland, the Baltic states or the Czech Republic, but that Russian forces will shoot down F-16 planes if the West delivers them to Kiev.

On March 17, after winning the presidential elections, Putin was asked about a total conflict with NATO, should Western troops find themselves in Ukraine, and said: "Everything is possible in the modern world," Reuters reported.