Máté Kocsis wrote on Facebook: ‘Hungary is a committed member of NATO and the European Union, so we will do everything in our power to promote and maintain peace, and the Finnish people can count on us in this regard. We Hungarians have a special historical friendship with Finland, our allies.’

Hungary has always been on the side of peace, but the country needs strength and preparation for its defence, and it must participate in peace-supporting operations within the framework of alliances.

‘We are waiting for Swedish government officials to reassure members of the Hungarian parliament; our goal is to support Sweden’s NATO accession with the largest possible parliamentary majority, similarly to Finland’s,’ the political director of the prime minister said.

Warsaw eagerly supported the USG commitment to increase American military presence in the region right from the start, as the country has been pushing for a stronger stance on Russia for years. With the additional 1,700 US troops that Poland welcomed this year, now there are 10, 000 American soldiers stationed in the country.

There has been no doubt from the first moment that Hungary is committed to Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, argues Zsolt Németh, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Hungarian Parliament in an interview about the decades of Hungarian NATO membership, the Hungarian peace diplomacy and the prospects of the Finland & Sweden Accession.

The Orbán administration has committed to spending at least two per cent of the country’s GDP on defence by the end of 2024, a commitment made in 2014 by all NATO members but something many NATO countries have not yet honoured. Hungary, in fact, is set to achieve the two per cent threshold by the end of this year, before the deadline.

The working dinner was held at the Élysée Palace, where Macron received the Hungarian Prime Minister in front of the press at around 7:30 p.m.

Ukraine’s hunger for ammunition is almost impossible to meet, while NATO is running low on stocks. Hungary, meanwhile, is strengthening its own military.

Ahead of the upcoming presidential elections in Montenegro, US Deputy Assistant Secretary Gabriel Escobar has warned of the possibility of Russian interference. A fast-tracked accession to the EU of the Western Balkans countries, which Hungary has been urging for some time, could put an end to Russian influence in the region.

Gergely Gulyás stated that the government believes that it is necessary to prepare for a protracted war and that economic difficulties persist due to the sanctions. He added that Hungary’s position is clear: Hungary condemns Russian aggression and provides humanitarian assistance to Ukraine.

‘Hungary’s political leadership is strong enough to keep our country out of the war. I say this in all humility, but also with confidence,’ the Prime Minister declared.

Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, has recently held talks with his Swedish counterpart, Tobias Billström, in Stockholm.

‘Slovakia has turned thirty years old. Whether the past three decades can be considered a success story remains an open question. The Slovak nation achieved the independence it had always wanted.’

In the CEE region, only Romania and the Czech Republic are ahead of Hungary in terms of the strength of their military. This is a quite notable achievement given that in 2010, the Hungarian Defence Forces were still lagging behind the Serbian, Austrian, and even the Slovak and Croatian armed forces.

‘Force transformation is a never-ending task, we have to continuously adapt to the changing environment and be at the forefront of preparing for the future,’ the Hungarian Ministry of Defence highlighted.

Shortly after the uncovered plot to destabilise Moldova, Russian missiles violated the country’s airspace.

Gergely Gulyás spoke at a conference organised by the Mathias Corvinus Collegium and stated that Hungary’s dependence on the EU is not due to its 1.4 per cent contribution to the Hungarian GDP, but rather because Hungary is a part of a unified Europe and Schengen area, and the common market is essential for Hungary’s economy.

On 9 February, Mathias Corvinus Collegium organised a discussion with Henri Vanhanen, a research fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. The Finnish expert offered some valuable insights into why Finland wants to join NATO now, and how the thought process in that direction evolved over the years.

Instead of testing Russia’s willingness to allow the crossing of what for now are soft red lines, the West should start thinking about how peace could be achieved.

Austria’s Chancellor was the first Western leader to meet with Putin after the invasion. Now, despite strong criticism, Russian representatives were granted visas to Austria to attend the OSCE summit in Vienna in February.

Naftali Bennett made shocking claims about his derailed mediation efforts in the Ukraine conflict in a five-hour interview, uploaded to his own YouTube channel.

‘Central Europe is a natural corridor between the two superpowers, forming a buffer zone. In the last thirty years, it seemed that the leading politicians of the countries in this region clearly saw and understood what they could and could not do.’

Upon the advent of the new decade, it was expected that the 2020s would be challenging even without a major economic crisis or another high-impact, low-probability event after the COVID–19 pandemic.

Swedish media has suggested that Moscow may be behind the Saturday burning of the Quran outside the Turkish embassy in Stockholm.

The remarks of a senior Turkish official on 14 January imply that it is unlikely Sweden and Finland would be able to join NATO before June.

Could it be that Orbán is not the enfant terrible of the EU, nor the Trojan horse of Moscow, but one of the few statesmen left in the trans-Atlantic alliance with some common sense and long-term vision?

‘The huge potential of the Hungarian defence industry can unfold at the best possible time, as one of the recurring themes of EU defence ministerial discussions is that stocks are being depleted and there is insufficient capacity for after-market production.’

Despite the tensions with Serbia, in December 2022 Kosovo formally applied to join the EU. But unless relations between Serbia and Kosovo are normalized, accession of either of the countries is unlikely.

According to Van Buren, it is ‘shameful’ that the Biden administration is not forcefully pushing for a diplomatic solution, but is content to bleed out the Russians, as it did in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

Poland’s efforts to turn its growing military power into political influence may be hampered by criticism of its alleged rule of law issues and concerns over its arms purchases from non-NATO countries outside Europe.