Németh recalled that since the introduction of utility cost reduction in 2013, Brussels has consistently and aggressively pushed for its termination, even though the programme has resulted in Hungarians paying the lowest household energy bills in Europe.

House Speaker László Kövér of Hungary has claimed that while the administration and President Novák support Sweden’s NATO bid, there is division between Fidesz MPs in parliament on the issue. Meanwhile, President Erdoğan of Turkey, the other holdout country, is also walking back on his commitment to the ratification.

On 12 July, one day after the correction issued by the Ukrainian foreign ministry, some Ukrainian media, including the English language Kyiv Independent, were still posting articles about WizzAir having removed ‘a Ukrainian war veteran’ from its flight. Obviously, the fake news was too conveniently painting a negative picture of Hungary to be just let go by the unapologetically anti-Hungarian Ukrainian press.

Monday’s negotiations were a very important milestone in building trust between the EU and Hungary, Judit Varga said, who added that she does not expect any new conditions from the European Commission regarding the Hungarian justice package.

Unfortunately, relentless propaganda works, and we are wrong to assume or represent it otherwise.

Budapest’s mayor unknowingly participated in a conversation with two Russian comedians, who were pretending to be the mayor of Kyiv. The incident raises some worrying concerns about how much we can trust our eyes in the age of deep fakes.

Disinformation, fake news or active measures to ideologically subvert the Western world – 38 years ago a former KGB agent, Yuri Bezmenov exposed Soviet techniques to ideologically undermine the Western world. The ideological capture of some Western institutions bears an uncanny resemblance to what he described as the KGB’s plan to demoralise the American society.