‘This Is Why Putin And Orbán Talk About Peace’

It is stupid and hopeless to negotiate with Russia.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán met with US presidential candidate Donald Trump. Before that, he visited Kyiv, Moscow, Baku, and Beijing. Who is behind this trip of the Hungarian Prime Minister? Charter97.org talked about this and more with Ukrainian politician, former Verkhovna Rada deputy Boryslav Bereza:

— Whoever is behind Orbán (or this is his personal initiative), this is definitely not good for Ukraine and the European Union. Moreover, EU lawyers have already officially stated that Orbán violated several legal documents by starting such negotiation processes, offering himself as a mediator.

Moreover, his visits to China and Russia only indicate that this was agreed upon in advance, and now his position is simply being legalized. Orbán shows that Hungary, which currently dominates the European Union, is allegedly negotiating on behalf of Brussels, although Orbán does not have such a mandate of trust. Therefore, what we see now is a big geopolitical game on the part of Hungary, Russia and China to advance an agenda in the interests of the Russian dictator.

— There are a huge number of different “peace plans” in the information field. There is the Chinese one, there is the plan of Trump's advisers, the “Istanbul agreements” have recently surfaced, Putin's cynical version of a truce. Why has there been so much talk about peace lately, who benefits from it?

— There is a very interesting situation here. I would like to illustrate it with the words of Dzhokhar Dudayev, who said that Russia always offers negotiations when it is hard for it, when its plans are collapsing, in order to gain time, pull up its forces, correct mistakes and find weak points, and then strike with renewed vigor.

Russia has already stated that it is even ready for Iran to be a mediator. So, not everything is so good for Russia. And at the moment, the Russian Federation is trying to form a demand for negotiations through public opinion. Russia pretends that everything is fine, but it is only pretending. In reality, the Russian Federation has a huge number of problems.

Cut off from Western technology and opportunities, Russia has fallen under the complete influence of China. The longer it remains in this position, the worse its situation becomes and the aggravation of its dependence on Beijing only grows. Therefore, Putin is now interested in stopping the war, and in order to get out of this dependence, his main demand will be, oddly enough, the lifting of sanctions.

Without the lifting of sanctions, he will remain in the same dependent position. He becomes a vassal, and his feudal lord Beijing will dictate. Putin is not happy with this, he even shows his disagreement with a visit to North Korea or some other actions, violating the tacit parity with China that he does not interfere in Beijing's zone of influence. But China responds to this. China responds, for example, with exercises in Belarus and visiting Orbán in Hungary.

We remember that after France, Xi went to Budapest. We see a very big geopolitical game here.

But negotiations now are not a goal, but a tool for achieving the results they need. For example, if negotiations took place, the war was frozen before the US elections, then it would be in Biden's interests, and Biden could say that he stopped the war and was saving Ukrainians from dying. Recently, Biden even said that he “stopped Putin”, and the next day Putin fired at Okhmatdyt. The question is: did you really stop him? Why is Biden's statement different from reality?

If negotiations take place after the elections, and, let's imagine, Trump wins instead of Biden, then the negotiations are in Trump's interests, because he will say that he just came and has already agreed with everyone.

China is also interested, it wants to show itself as a peacemaker and is playing a bipolar world. Russia is interested in taking a break, rearming, accumulating forces, and increasing its army. It will work on its mistakes and start a second war, in which the Kremlin hopes to finally put an end to Ukraine's independence.

In this situation, Ukraine also wants the war to end, but only without the possibility of its resumption. And this is the most important thing for Ukraine. Therefore, negotiations are in the air, because there are many interested parties, but it is very difficult to formalize them, because each side has its own conditions. And Russia's conditions are absolutely unacceptable for Ukraine, and Putin is not ready to accept the conditions that we set. This is why such a situation occurred.

Orbán is trying to imitate a negotiator in order, on the one hand, to gain additional points for himself in the international arena, on the other hand, he wants to show himself to be influential enough, because neither the Turks, nor the Chinese, nor the Swiss, nor the Saudi Arabs, nor even the United Arab Emirates will be able to achieve what he will achieve.

In addition, Orbán wants to show himself as a representative of Trump's interests in the European Union. Orbán is now absolutely on his side, although he plays along with Russia and China. Therefore, the negotiations that each of the parties is pushing through are talks in the format that each of these parties sees, but in reality there are practically no points of contact.

— How should the West and Ukraine respond to the talk of the so-called peace?

— Europe is already reacting. Loud statements have appeared that Hungary's presidency of the European Union must be terminated, Orbán must be held accountable and all legal mechanisms that exist must be used. Most likely, they will be used, but Europe is a large bureaucratic machine. However, it will start working.

Ukraine has already responded through Zelensky, who said that we will not give up our territories. And he said that this plan is unacceptable to us. Moreover, let's be honest: negotiating with Russia is stupid and hopeless. The Chechens already tried to negotiate back in 1996.

They signed the Khasavyurt agreements. Then General Lebed signed on behalf of Russia, and Maskhadov signed on behalf of Chechnya. And after that, Russia pledged to carry out all reforms within 5 years. There was supposed to be autonomy and everything else for Chechnya, but in 1999, Russia violated these agreements, and already in August, Russian planes bombed Chechnya.

When we talk about signing something with Russia and agreeing on something, it is either absolute stupidity, or naivety, or betrayal. Because Russia will violate any agreement it has signed. There is no doubt about it. The only thing that can stop Russia from violating the agreements is if it understands that it will not be able to achieve results, and this can be achieved in only two ways: either by joining NATO, or by Ukraine creating such a strong militarized state that it is guaranteed to be too tough for Russia.

Because Russia's main weapon is meat, lots and lots of meat, although armed with old equipment, but in large quantities. And Ukraine resists by repelling all these attacks, receiving Western, not the newest advanced equipment, but fighting back. If it receives the newest and most advanced weapons — then it will no longer just fight back, but will return its territories. This is exactly what Russia fears. Therefore, we need to make its fear a reality.

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