A Pivotal Year in Politics: High Stakes and Critical Shifts Await in 2024

Rarely has a single year carried such profound implications for global security and the future as the one that lies ahead. With conflicts erupting across the globe, the foundations of the international order are being relentlessly tested. Compounding
these challenges, 2024 is marked by the impending presidential elections in two formidable and opposing powers, the United States and Russia. Similar gravity can be attributed to the European Parliament elections scheduled for the same year, where a realistic opportunity exists for the reinforcement of right-leaning forces.

Still from the American comedy film The Cheerful Fraud (1927) with Reginald Denny and Gertrude Astor.

How Some Russian Opposition Media Misrepresent Hungary

After the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine, all large Russian opposition media outlets were forced to leave the country. Notwithstanding their dire situation, some of them could nonetheless retain a significant chunk of their former readership, which equals millions. Regrettably, judging by how they portray Hungary, responsible journalism is not their strength.

The Fallen Soldier by Vasily Vereshchagin (c. 1878)

War Fatigue and the Tragedy of the Russian-Ukrainian War

According to estimates, in November Russia suffered over 900 casualties a day; thousands of Ukrainian civilians and more than 30,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed since the start of the invasion. It is clear that the cost of the war is becoming unbearably high.

A woman looks at flags bearing symbols and colours of Ukraine that commemorate fallen Ukrainian soldiers in Independence Square, Kyiv on 1 December 2023.

Time to Reassess the Ukrainian Strategy

‘Washington and the EU need to take an entirely different approach, one that may actually work, and that is facilitate a ceasefire. Convincing Zelensky to consider this does not necessarily mean that Ukraine is to give up on restoring its 1991 borders or on holding Putin’s government responsible for the death and destruction he has caused since invading the country.’

Social media (illustration, Pixabay)

The Strategic Reassessment of the Fight Against Tech Giants in Wartime

‘Most importantly, Facebook is a Western company, and we are a Western-style democracy. Facebook’s ideology is basically liberal democracy, as is ours—although the Hungarian Government takes issue with this and represents a version of it based on Christian, conservative values. The number one platform for this world and this set of values for the public is the Facebook universe: we are therefore allies; not good friends, but allies.’

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (R) with former Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal in Moscow in 2007.

Israel Learns the Hard Way Not to Trust Russia

Moscow has failed to condemn the 7 October Hamas attack as terrorism, and Putin has likened the Gaza blockade by Israel to the siege of Leningrad by Nazi Germany, effectively poisoning the previously amicable Russia–Israel relations.