Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is travelling to Paris to meet French President Emmanuel Macron for bilateral talks on Ukraine, as European leaders prepare for a decisive emergency summit on Thursday. While Europe has attempted to signal its readiness to fill the void left by Donald Trump’s halt on all military aid to Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy appears to prefer Washington’s support.
The Hungarian Foreign Ministry’s plane was denied landing in Sarajevo following a decision by Bosnian Defence Minister Zukan Helez. Helez cited Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s continued support for Milorad Dodik, leader of Republika Srpska. Dodik was sentenced to one year in prison last week on politically motivated grounds.
US President Donald Trump has moved to halt all military aid to Ukraine following a heated clash with his Ukrainian counterpart in the Oval Office on Friday. The decision comes as European leaders prepare to meet on Thursday to determine the EU’s strategy, with an overwhelming majority favouring continued military support over peace negotiations.
Prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, about two-third of Germany’s eight brigades were combat-ready. According to Head of the German Armed Forces Association Colonel Andre Wuestner, that figure has declined to roughly 50 per cent due to the export of weapons and equipment to Ukraine.
Donald Trump’s team is scheduled to meet the Russian delegation on Monday in Saudi Arabia for the first round of peace talks aimed at ending the war in Ukraine. Following the Munich Security Conference over the weekend, where European and Ukrainian participation in the talks remained uncertain amid conflicting statements, EU leaders are set to convene in Paris for an emergency summit. Meanwhile, on Sunday Zelenskyy arrived in the United Arab Emirates.
‘Politically, however, it is not impossible for a state to decide that it would be better, both for children and for the country, to give schools freedom to develop educational approaches that follow liberal education principles, whether within the state system or outside it, especially if evidence can be gathered to show the beneficial effects it is having.’
After speaking with both Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Donald Trump announced that negotiations to end the war in Ukraine would begin ‘immediately’. Meanwhile, Pentagon chief Peter Hegseth informed NATO defence ministers that the US is gradually withdrawing from Europe. These two announcements left EU leaders in shock and despair—but in reality, they present a historic opportunity for the continent.
‘The HQ MND-C’s role will expand in the coming years, and is set to coordinate NATO military exercises aimed at testing combat readiness and enhancing interoperability among Allied forces. It will continue to play a critical role in the region’s defence architecture, ensuring that the Alliance remains prepared for the challenges of the future.’
‘Yesterday, we were the heretics. Today, we are the mainstream. Once, we were dismissed as the past; today, we are the future,’ Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán declared in his speech at the Patriots for Europe (PfE) EP group’s summit in Madrid. Over the weekend the most prominent figures of the European right gathered in the Spanish capital under the banner ‘Make Europe Great Again’ (MEGA) to deliver a clear message to the Western mainstream: they are more than ready to take over Brussels.
‘Debates connected to the culture war, including even on such amorphous issues as the West’s slide into spiritual nihilism or the loss of its inner will, are directly relevant to international politics and even international security. Western strategic thinkers must take these issues into account just as analysts in Beijing or Moscow do. To do otherwise would be a potentially dangerous mistake.’
Hungarian Conservative is a quarterly magazine on contemporary political, philosophical and cultural issues from a conservative perspective.