Europe’s largest nuclear plant was temporarily cut off from the power grid on Thursday. Although the catastrophe was avoided this time, experts say a nuclear accident at the Zaporizhzhia plant could be as devastating as the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

As our neighbour is fighting a homeland-defending war against Russia, let’s take a moment on this memorable day to pay tribute to the long-standing Hungarian-Ukrainian relations, which have been close and essentially positive throughout history.

On Monday morning the first ship carrying 26,000 tonnes of corn left the South Ukrainian port of Odesa. The departure of the ship offers a ray of hope that the food crisis may be addressed soon under the new deal between Moscow and Kyiv.

We are facing ‘a decade of dangers, of uncertainty and wars’, said PM Viktor Orbán in his speech at Tusványos. A visionary program for 2022 and beyond.

Russia and Ukraine have agreed to reopen Black Sea ports for grain exports. The deal is a good start but to prevent famine more needs to be done.

During his visit to Ukraine, Hungarian State Secretary Levente Magyar reaffirmed Hungary’s support for the war-battered country and its Hungarian minorities living in Transcarpathia.

The Hungarian Minister of Agriculture has recently travelled to Ukraine to help negotiate a solution for what is perhaps the greatest humanitarian crisis of our century.

The North Atlantic Treaty forms the legal basis of NATO, but what exactly is the scope of the alliance’s authority?

Ukrainian Jewish community leader Rabbi Mayer Tzvi Stambler has sent a letter to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán expressing his gratitude for Hungary’s help in hosting Ukrainian Jewish refugees

The West started pouring weapons into Ukraine in a bid to help the country fend off the Russians. This led to a substantial expansion of the illegal arms market, which endangers the whole region.

A recent poll published by Nézőpont Institute revealed glaring differences between Central Europeans’ satisfaction with their governments. Disproving overwhelmingly negative Western press reports, Hungarians are the happiest with their government in the region.

The war in Ukraine is going to end eventually, but the country will need long years to become whole again. Leaders at the Ukraine Recovery Conference discussed the details of this enormous project.

The need to return to national interest, realism, restraint, balance of power, and Westphalian non-intervention is perhaps the most tragic and urgent lesson that must be learned from this war.

Although the Visegrád Four may be facing one of the most severe disruptions of its history, it is too early to discount it as a “collateral victim of the war,” as the cooperation’s main virtue has always been its ability to overcome momentary political disputes.

The possibility was unnoticed or at least underrated, that the AUKUS agreement was a strange victory, not only for AUKUS members, but also for another region, usually chastised by the world’s political elite: Central and Eastern Europe.

While the parties are making contradictory statements about a possible nuclear emergency, expert analyses suggest that the risks posed by nuclear weapons in the context of the Russian offensive should be taken seriously.

Henry Kissinger said Ukraine should seek peace negotiations with Russia, even if that means conceding territories. After months of Western powers pursuing the policy of shattering not only Putin’s war prospects but his whole regime, the former top official’s advice comes as a surprise. But what is the underlying logic?

It is our position that the Russian troops must be withdrawn from the occupied territories. Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, and the human and minority rights within its borders must be restored.

The war is now two months old, and notwithstanding continual efforts by the  UN Security Council to stop the fighting, such collective security efforts have achieved very little if nothing at all.

I think Prime Minister Orbán has actually done a very reasonable job of keeping those lines open and saying, “look, you know, we’re not interested in conflating the issue of energy with some of these broader strategic issues.”

While Brussels hopes that breaking free from Russian energy will encourage a green turn in Europe, the chances of a green transition in Central Europe are in fact very low.

Even if we focus only on Hungary, we see that around 450.000 refugees from Ukraine have crossed the country’s border so far, which is by far the highest influx of displaced persons to the country since the Yugoslav war.

What is certain is that there is no shortage of creative ideas on how to support Ukraine. What is surprising, however, is how forcibly and spectacularly the Slovak Republic, which was extremely close to the Russian Federation in the nineties, is trying to oppose this great nuclear power.

Why has the majority of the international community criminalised Vladimir Putin, but has for the past seven years refrained from publicly challenging or criticising the US government’s implicit role in the Yemeni genocide?

Refugees can now access social welfare and medical assistance, while Ukrainian children have the right to attend education and day care in Hungary.

Spain’s civil war has been widely considered as the ‘dress rehearsal’ of the Second World War, a sort of test-run for the global conflict that followed shortly. Now, the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war is becoming increasingly similar to it in many of its aspects, but does that mean we’re heading in the same direction?

If NATO has already been militarily involved in non-member countries at the behest of Washington, why is it reluctant to assist Ukraine with anything but with arms provisions? 

The worst-case scenario is nuclear strikes by nuclear world powers, with consequences beyond our imagination. Now is the time to stop. To take two steps back. To understand what this war is about. To decide on what we want.

‘I have been able to see a distinct feature in Europe: a complete lack of solidarity among Europeans. Part of this dichotomy stems from a lack of Christian leadership.’

While on the surface Putin’s responsibility for the crisis is apparent, the reality is that Putin was provoked by the West to invade Ukraine.