C’è qualche possibilità che l’Ungheria possa diventare amica dell’Ucraina mentre quest’uomo è al potere?

Hungarian here.

Péter Magyar is pro-EU, pro-NATO. He doesn’t support the *accelerated* accession of Ukraine to the EU, but he says Ukraine needs to complete the milestones just as any other state did. He is running against Orbán in a climate where many of the Hungarians have been brainwashed by Russian propaganda that is spread through pro-Orbán news outlets and government campaigns. Also, Péter Magyar’s party is constantly accused of being a puppet of Ukraine and Brussels, and government agencies threaten to ban the opposition party from running because of ‘foreign influence’. The country is filled with giant posters of Zelensky and Magyar together, who are supposedly pose a threat to Hungary. But stupid as this sounds, it works for many undecided voters. So Péter Magyar can’t be seen too friendly to Ukrainians.

However, if he’s elected I think he will normalize Ukrainian-Hungarian affairs. He won’t be a puppet of Putin as Orbán. Péter Magyar would swipe out Russian spies from the Russian embassy and Foreign Ministry, because now they are full of them. I think Péter Magyar will continue buying Russian gas but wants to diversify energy security in the long run, so Hungary doesn’t depend on Russia so much. The EU would be better off with Magyar and without Orbán, that is for sure.

We don’t have to be friends, but mutually beneficial relations based on pragmatic approach are totally possible.

Ukraine is concerned to hostility from Hungary’s side such as suspending Ukraine’s integraion to EU, undermining sanctions against Russia, or blocking 90B EU’s reparation credit for Ukraine. But there’s a bigger issue: Hungary poses a credible physical threat to Ukraine, in kidnapped Ukrainian citizens and seized money and gold from cash-in-transit truck recently, it launched drones incursion to Ukraine last September, Hungarian army started movement towards border with Ukraine in February ’22 with intensions that remain unclear still. It’s not something that Ukraine could have provoked, these are hostile actions of Orban’s regime.

Ukraine will look for a way to cooperate with any Hungarian government. And I believe Orban’s anti-Ukraine rhetoric and actions will cease significantly if he wins the next election. On the other hand, Hungary would only benefit from changing corrupted Orban’s regime.

Anyone but Vatnik Orcban.

>What is his stance toward Ukraine?

Careful.

The last prime ministerial candidate unequivocally said that if NATO asked, Hungary would send military aid to Ukraine. The state-owned media took his words out of context, spread the message that he would send Hungarians to the war to die. That’s the message they were hammering home all day, every day for weeks and it worked, it tipped the scale to another 2/3 for Orbán.

So Magyar is trying to avoid such scenarios by tiptoeing around the topic of Ukraine, even though the propagandists are following him and his team around all the time, cleary trying to bait him into saying something that they could take out of context.

He did have vaguely positive statements like Russia is the aggressor and only Putin can stop the war, that he won’t veto sanction packages, that Ukraine should have a just peace with international guarantees, not another failed Budapest Memorandum, that he wants Hungary to be a respected member of the EU, NATO and V4 and have a good relationship with its neighbours, that Hungary should diversify its energy supply.
As for specific actions, he also said no to Ukraine fast-tracked ascension to the EU, no to military aid, no to Hungary taking part in that 90B loan.

I don’t know how he wants Hungary to be a respected member of the EU and have a good relationship with Ukraine without actively helping Ukraine, but he surely he cannot say more in the current media landscape. His and President Zelensky’s faces are already on billboards all over the country, because the government is trying to send the message that he is a puppet of Brussels and Kyiv, that he’d raise taxes and send it to Ukraine, that he’d send Hungarians to the war to die, or bring the war to Hungary, etc. etc. and it’s not ineffective.

At this point, not being hostile towards Ukraine would be a huge improvement.

Being friends? I’m afraid that would take atleast a few years of work on our (hungarians) part. The brainwashing goes really deep in hungarian society.

I don’t think Hungary would ever be Ukrainian friend. But at least they won’t be russian puppets, and that already worths a lot. Having at least sane government in Hungary would be nice. Because now orbanites are just an abomination straight from hell.

Better chance than Orban