Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán warned on Friday (February 14) that the current war in Ukraine could turn into the European Union’s version of Afghanistan—an unending and expensive conflict with no apparent solution.
Speaking at a media event in Dubai alongside former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Orbán pointed out the EU’s significant financial assistance to Kyiv, mentioning that the bloc has already provided hundreds of billions of euros in aid since the onset of the Russia-Ukraine war three years ago, as reported by Politico.
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An Afghanistan for the EU
“If President Trump is not able to find a solution, that war could become easily an Afghanistan for the European Union,” Orbán remarked, drawing a parallel to the United States’ 20-year war in Afghanistan, now under Taliban rule.
“Endless war, endless conflict, no way out … eating up energy, human lives, money, everything,” he added. “Destroying the frame of normal life for the European Union. … We are in serious danger.”
Orbán, one of the few European leaders who maintains connections with Russian President Vladimir Putin, has persistently resisted Western military aid to Ukraine and has repeatedly threatened to obstruct EU support to Kyiv, although he has ultimately backed down.
His comments on Friday offered a different viewpoint from earlier assessments that compared Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to the Soviet Union’s ill-fated incursion in Afghanistan during the 1980s.
Orbán indicated that the EU is now shouldering the burden of the war, cautioning that its ongoing nature could deplete resources and destabilize the area.
During the conversation, he also reiterated Moscow’s assertion that Ukraine’s NATO ambitions were the catalyst for the conflict.
In defending himself against allegations of being pro-Russian, he remarked, “I’m not a pro-Putin person, I’m a pro-Hungarian individual. ”
“The difficulty is … how to convince the Russians to stop the war while the Russians are basically winning,” he added. “This is the big question.”
His remarks coincided with renewed initiatives by former US President Donald Trump—who has close relationships with Orbán—to advocate for peace negotiations to settle the conflict.
Trump’s recent 90-minute phone call with Putin has raised alarm in Kyiv and throughout Europe that Washington and Moscow could seek to negotiate Ukraine’s future without involving Kyiv directly.
