The Orban Factor: How the Kremlin Manipulates the European Community

Source: Author’s Facebook page

Orban suddenly allowed himself to make very derogatory statements about Russia and its capabilities – but I am sure this is a continuation of the Kremlin’s special information operation.

“I never understood why, if we are stronger, why do we say that we are weak? Russia cannot harm us. So what? Russia is weak compared to us, weak militarily, economically and numerically. We are strong. We should behave as a strong community. Compared to this, they play the game that we are weak. Russians have about 313-140 million people, and the EU has over 400 million. Russian GDP is the size of a peanut, ours is huge, so the overall economic indicators are incomparable. What the Russians spend on military needs is only a fraction of what we spend in Western Europe together, in 27 countries together.”

Many rejoice in humiliation. But my opinion is that this is a deliberate understatement to silence the militarization of Europe. Literally the classic Sun Tzu, “war is a way of deception”: “If you are strong, pretend to be weak.”

In fact, these theses have been introduced by the Kremlin into the political and social space of Europe for at least several months: “Don’t be afraid of us, we are weak, we don’t need anything outside of Ukraine! But we simply don’t have the strength to conquer anyone beyond the borders of Ukraine, so all your defense spending for reinsurance is simply unnecessary! You objectively don’t need to spend on any weapons, on preparing for a European war “when Russia attacks” – because we won’t be able to attack. And even if something like that happens, you are much stronger than Russia anyway, relax and continue spending on culture and social welfare, not on defense!”.

In essence, this is a classic attempt at a historical remake of “The Reich and Czechoslovakia-1939”: in the sense that Europe allowed itself to be persuaded into inaction, because “they will definitely be satisfied with this and stop at the borders of Czechoslovakia, they will not go further, we have nothing to worry about.” However, now Europe is in no hurry to be persuaded and calm down.

On the contrary: preparations for a Russian attack are covering more and more countries and more and more industries. Medicine, energy, weapons and technology, national production, information, restoration of natural barriers (swamps along the border with the Russian Federation), joint training and modernization of tactics along the lines of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, anti-terrorist measures, diplomacy and espionage, and now a campaign is being launched to clarify actions in the event of the application of Article 5…

And it is not surprising that Orban has joined in spreading the mantra “Russia is weak, we don’t need to prepare for its attack.” Putin has him by the throat too tightly. Orban knows that if he loses power, he will sit down. And in Hungary, protests against Orban and the authorities do not stop.

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