Hungarian Conservative

In his regular Friday morning interview PM Orbán discussed, among other topics, the upcoming ratification of Sweden’s NATO accession, and the second anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The security of the Sahel is the security of Europe as well. If the EU and its Member States, including Hungary, want to avoid having to face irregular mass migration and terrorism at their immediate borders, we have to invest in the security of the Sahel, using all aspects of collaboration, from diplomacy to development and defence.

All but one EU Member State, Hungary, have condemned Israel’s potential ground invasion of Rafah, scheduled to happen if all hostages are not freed by the start of the Ramadan. This is not the first time the Orbán administration has stood up for Israel.

A bipartisan US Senate delegation visited Budapest over the weekend to exert pressure on the Hungarian parliament to advance the ratification of Sweden’s NATO membership. The senators also held consultations with opposition politicians and NGO representatives, and are planning to propose a resolution condemning Hungary.

During her meetings, Katalin Novák expressed her support for the EU accession of West Balkan nations, visited the troops of the Hungarian-led EUFOR Althea mission, and discussed Hungary’s family support schemes.

The Jerusalem Post has learned that the Hungarian and German governments have granted citizenship and issued passports to some of the Israeli hostages abducted on 7 October by Hamas. Some of those hostages have since been released, while others remain captive. The Hungarian MFAT has not yet commented on the report.

In this article, historian László Bernát Veszprémy recounts the story of three Israeli prime ministers who resigned as a result of military debacles that happened under their leadership.

On 18 December, a release ceremony was held for the Hungarian troops of the EUFOR Althea mission. From January 2024, the EU peacekeeping mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina will be led by a Hungarian commander, Major General László Stitz.

At the handover ceremony Minister of Defence Kristóf Szalay-Bobrovniczky stressed that the new 2A7HU tanks, which are among the most modern globally, ‘represent a whole new world, even compared to the A4s, and are more modern than those used by the German forces.’

Israel has not only released many prisoners in the past in exchange for living soldiers, such as Gilad Shalit in 2011, but the abduction of Israeli corpses has also proven to be a ‘fruitful venture’ for terrorists. In the Jewish religion, dead bodies are highly revered, and attempts are always made to bury them as soon as possible.

A four-day humanitarian ceasefire has been agreed upon by Israel and Hamas, as confirmed by both parties and the mediator Qatar as well. The Palestinians agreed to the release of 50 Israeli hostages, mostly women and children, while Israel agreed to set free 150 Palestinian prisoners. However, PM Netanyahu of Israel insists his country is still at war.

After Hamas brutally attacked Israel on 7 October, the refugee camp on the shore of Lake Balaton in Hungary was converted into a safe haven for Israeli Jews who wanted to escape with their families from the horrors of war. The camp now houses around 250 people, including 100 children, most of whom have fled from Israel since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war.

Hungary’s geographical location gives it an important role on NATO’s eastern flank and the Alliance is very grateful to Hungary for hosting one of the eight NATO battle groups, Deputy Commander of NATO’s Land Command (LANDCOM) Nicola Zanelli said in an interview with HDF website honvedelem.hu.

The objective of the exercise is to test the military’s readiness for and response to an imagined situation threatening Hungary’s security. Another goal is to test the capabilities of the civilian public administration when it comes to troop movements and logistics, the Hungarian Defence Minister noted.

In the mid-2010s, the Hungarian defence industry was declared a key national economic area with the goal of providing Hungarian-made state-of-the-art defence equipment to the renewed Hungarian armed forces and make Hungary an arms exporter. Since then several major international companies have announced plans to bring their manufacturing and development capacity to the country.

The equipping of the Gidrán combat vehicle already started in Hungary years ago, but from now on, the vehicle itself will be manufactured in the country.

During the nominee’s parliamentary committee hearing, Defence Minister Kristóf Szalay-Bobrovniczky stated that the leadership of the armed forces has been significantly and fundamentally renewed over the past one and a half to two years; practically the entire leadership of the HDF has changed, and all unit commanders are excellent young officers.

In an interview with Hungarian news website Index, Mazsihisz Chief Rabbi Róbert Frölich declared that Budapest and Hungary as a whole are ‘an island of peace’ for the Jewish community.

The gross average monthly earnings for full-time employees amounted to 555,900 forints, surpassing the previous year’s figures by 15.2 per cent.

The outcome of the Israel-Hamas war is unpredictable, the US support of Israel is two-faced, and the occupation of Gaza would be an enormous military burden very hard to disengage from, Christopher J. Farrell, Director for Investigations and Research at Judicial Watch and a former US Army counterintelligence officer argues.

On 7 October, the terrorist group Hamas commenced the largest and bloodiest attack against Israel since the Yom Kippur War. In many ways, the aggression echoes not only the 1973 war, but also the al-Qaeda terrorist attacks on the US as well.

The Afghanistan War started exactly 22 years ago. Two years after it came to an end, our analysis looks back at the invasion and the botched nation-building, attempting to pinpoint the reasons of the ambitious project’s failure.

According to Professor Tokuchi, the war on Ukraine is likely to last for a substantial period of time, engagement with China is necessary but risky, and demographic challenges seriously influence Japan’s future defence capabilities.

Tristan Azbej emphasized that Hungarian research and rescue personnel have undertaken a difficult and heroic mission in recent days. Due to the challenging accessibility, only a few international groups arrived in Libya, where Hungarians primarily searched for deceased individuals and discovered more than a hundred bodies.

Two major NATO innovative bodies, the NATO Innovation Fund (NIF) and the Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA), are holding their conferences in Budapest, Hungary this week. To mark the occasion, the Hungarian Ministry of Defence announced the hosting of the ‘NATO Innovation Week’.

‘If I heard about a country that produces and develops military technology together with Germany and Israel, I would think twice before I would mess with it. And this is good news for all Hungarians,’ Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán underlined at the opening ceremony.

Our nation marked the 1023rd anniversary of the foundation of its state. Celebratory events were held all across the country, from Esztergom to Debrecen, with the greatest festivities taking place in the capital city of Budapest. There, the holiday crowd was treated to an Air Show by the pilots of the Hungarian Air Force and Europe’s largest fireworks and lights show, among other things.

It could be argued that modern tools and methods are part of what shapes the outcome of war, but not the decisive factors, as they have not brought about the drastic change in the pattern of war that many expected.

‘This drone is the result of several years of development work and the cooperation of Hungarian engineers,’ Imre Porkoláb, Ministerial Commissioner for Defence Innovation underlined.

With the recent large-scale build-up of the national defence industry, Hungary is not only ensuring its own military equipment supply, but also contributing to the development of European defence industrial capabilities and thus enhancing the EU’s security.