Partners and Opponents. What Should Ukraine Hope for Now?

Russia is actively looking for alternative options to achieve its goals in relation to Ukraine

Ivan Sichen

At the end of 2023, it is appropriate to look back on Russia’s “achievements” in the war against Ukraine. They are not too numerous. Most of the Russians mobilized last year killed during the assault on Bakhmut, which Russian troops never managed to fully capture. And the Defense Forces of Ukraine, on the contrary, moved forward, as well as in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, and not far from Kherson, where they crossed the Dnipro River and created a bridgehead on the left bank. Russia lost the rest of its mobilized fighters in an attempt to capture the settlements of Marinka and Avdiivka, which are suburbs of Donetsk. In the end, Russia captured part of Marinka and semi-surrounded Avdiivka. But even more Russian soldiers were killed and wounded near those settlements than in Bakhmut. And Russia will not be able to compensate for such losses with the so-called contract conscription of volunteers. That is why Moscow is actively looking for other options to achieve its goals in relation to Ukraine. In particular, by setting up against Ukraine various countries and political forces that are dependent on Russia, or that are trying to achieve some own goals by cooperating with Russia and betraying our state.

The Hungarian Orbán regime has been Ukraine’s main opponent in Europe for many years. It should be noted that it is not the people of Hungary, but its ruling elite, which is controlled by Russia and is the main conductor of Russian interests in the European Union and NATO. Thus, even before the full-scale war, Budapest hindered the processes of Ukraine’s European and Euro-Atlantic integration in every possible way. At that time, the excuse was an alleged “violation of the rights of ethnic Hungarians on Ukrainian territory”, and the reason was the adoption by Ukraine in 2019 of the Law “On Ensuring the Functioning of the Ukrainian Language as the State Language”.

As you know, the law provides for the teaching of some subjects in the Ukrainian language in national schools, including Hungarian ones in Transcarpathia, which the state leadership of Hungary and Moscow call “oppression of ethnic minorities”. And this is at the very time when V. Putin “allowed not to study” national languages in the schools of Russian Autonomous Republics. As expected, such permission was perceived by local authorities as a ban on learning native language, to which the population reacted with protests, in particular, in Tatarstan.

With the beginning of the full-scale war, Hungary refused to supply weapons to Ukraine. Besides, Budapest is trying in every possible way to block financial assistance to Ukraine from the EU and NATO. Moreover, Hungary is trying to pursue an anti-Ukrainian policy through the US Republican Party, which uses the Ukrainian issue for its political purposes. At the beginning of December 2023, it was this party that blocked in the US Congress a bill to allocate funds to strengthen the defense of Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. Formally, demanding concessions from the Democratic Party on the issue of strengthening the protection of the US border with Mexico. In order to eliminate this problem, US President Joe Biden began negotiations with the Republicans, making concessions to them. Therefore, on December 13, 2023, the US Congress approved the military budget for 2024 in the amount of a record 886 billion US dollars. The amount is more than ten times Russia’s military budget, which is 75 billion US dollars. The USA allocated only 300 million US dollars to Ukraine (the White House’s request was 61 billion US dollars). It remains to be hoped that these funds will still be allocated from other alternative sources. Especially as about 90 % of the funds provided by Washington to Ukraine remain in the United States, where they are used for the production of weapons. The US Congress has already postponed the Christmas holidays, promising to once again consider the issue of financial aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.

Although, one way or another, the positions of the official authorities of Hungary and individual members of the US Republican Party are beneficial to Russia. For example, on December 11–12, 2023, members of the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs and employees of the Hungarian Embassy in Washington held several briefings before representatives of the US Republican Party, trying to convince them of the need to stop providing military assistance to Ukraine. Allegedly, such assistance only contributes to the continuation of the war. As they say in the United States, Ronald Reagan, who was a member of the Republican Party and destroyed the USSR, would “turn over in his grave” if he found out that the course of his political force would become pro-Russian.

For some reason, many in Hungary support V. Orbán with his pro-Russian policy. Perhaps they no longer remember how in 1956, in Hungary, the USSR, together with its allies from the Warsaw Pact, suppressed a people’s uprising against the communist regime. The number of Soviet troops entering Hungary was approximately 200 thousand. They were armed with 2.5 thousand tanks. The basis of Soviet troops were two combined arms armies of the Carpathian Military District, as well as the Special Corps consisting of five divisions. In addition, two airborne divisions were involved, as well as fighter and bomber aircrafts. Budapest and other Hungarian cities where the rebels were concentrated came under devastating artillery and air strikes.

During the fighting, 2.6 thousand Hungarian citizens were killed. Another 19 thousand were injured. According to different estimates, about 350 people were executed, and more than 26,000 were prosecuted, 850 Hungarians were deported to Soviet prisons for investigation.

This arbitrariness was headed by Soviet Marshal I. Konev (by the way, responsible for the mass rape of German women in the spring of 1945). Above him stood another mass murderer, Marshal G. Zhukov. For the suppression of the Hungarian rebellion, he was awarded the fourth star of the Hero of the Soviet Union. His three previous stars were paid for with the blood of Soviet soldiers, one million for each. Another executioner of Hungary at that time, head of the KGB I. Serov, received the Order of Kutuzov 1^st class.

Soviet troops entered Hungary from the territory of the then Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Today, there is no doubt that in the event of Russia’s victory over Ukraine, Moscow’s next step would be an attack on the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, Hungary included.

So, V. Orbán betrayed his compatriots who laid down their lives for the freedom of Hungary in the struggle against the USSR, but, in fact, Russia. However, the mercantile V. Orbán also betrays Moscow. His party and the government cannot maintain the normal functioning of the Hungarian economy. Therefore, they rely on both cheap oil and gas supplies from the Russian Federation and loans from the European Union. The cynicism of the Hungarian authorities is obvious. For example, in Budapest’s attempt to make concessions on the issue of Ukraine in exchange for 30 billion Euros from EU funds to support the Hungarian state…

Moscow also welcomed the coming to power of pro-Russian forces in Slovakia, where, according to the results of the parliamentary elections, in September 2023, the Direction — Social Democracy party, known for its pro-Russian orientation and plans to reduce military assistance to Ukraine, won. The new Prime Minister of Slovakia, R. Fico, refused to further supply weapons to Ukraine from Slovak military stocks. However, private Slovak military companies are not prohibited from cooperation with Ukraine…

Certain negative features towards Ukraine began to be observed in the position of Poland, where parliamentary elections were held in October 2023. The ruling Law and Justice party, led by Prime Minister M. Morawiecki, failed to get the majority necessary to form a new government. During the election campaign, he repeatedly promised to stop supplying weapons to Ukraine. For which M. Morawiecki paid the price… The opposition in the Polish Parliament, which includes the Civic Platform party and the alliance of the Third Way movement and the Left, expressed a vote of no confidence in him. Instead, the leader of the Civic Platform D. Tusk became the Prime Minister of the country. He not only promised to continue to provide military assistance to Ukraine, but also undertook to unblock checkpoints on the border with our country, blocked by Polish trucks.

By the way, blocking the checkpoints has become another tool of Moscow to create economic problems for Ukraine and prevent it from receiving Western weapons. This practice has spread to Hungary and Slovakia. Their truckers also began to block checkpoints on the border with Ukraine. However, they have already begun to open, at least between Ukraine and Poland and Slovakia.

Pro-Russian tendencies are also observed in Bulgarian politics. Last year, it claimed the right to be excluded from the EU’s decision to ban European countries from importing Russian oil by sea. But recently, the Bulgarian parliament voted to eliminate sanctions exemption for Russian oil.

Most EU and NATO member states do support Ukraine. This was demonstrated by the summit of the European Council on December 14–15, 2023, where the following decisions were made:

• to open accession negotiations with Ukraine;
• to continue military assistance to our state;
• to condemn Russia’s actions and to introduce the 12^th package of sanctions against it (including a ban on the import of Russian diamonds).

During the voting, V. Orbán left the meeting room and thus demonstrated his attitude to the European Union. However, he failed to block the decisions, with the exception of allocating 50 billion Euros to Ukraine. But the Orbán blockade, in fact, means nothing. The EU countries allocate funds to Ukraine from their own state budgets, which would otherwise be transferred to the funds of the European Union, and from there to our country. Even Bulgaria has allocated 3.5 billion US dollars to Ukraine.

For its part, the United States has fully supported the EU’s decision. On the other side, as expected, during his press conference (direct line) on December 14, V. Putin condemned the decision of European leaders and pointed out the “adequacy” only of V. Orbán’s position. At this, he confirmed his intentions to continue the war against Ukraine until “the final achievement of the goals of the special military operation”.

And in conclusion, I would like to mention one more fact. Moscow hopes that Donald Trump will return to the power in the United States and stop the process of providing financial, economic and military aid to Ukraine. Although, it was he who once started supplying weapons to Ukraine. And during his tenure as President of the United States, the volume of US spending on the military deterrence of Russia in Europe tripled. Measures to increase the USA’s military presence in the European theater and the deployment of new units in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe were mainly financed.

Therefore, Moscow has absolutely nothing to hope for.