The tiny EU country with just 10 million people that’s become Putin’s trojan horse

The eastern European state that accounts for just 2 per cent of the entire EU population has derailed a vital aid package to Ukraine – and now threatens to derail Kyiv’s future as a member. With Putin’s fortunes rising, it is time to suspend Hungary from the bloc’s foreign policy decision-making, writes Bill Browder

Volodymr Zelensky meets EU leaders in Brussels (AP)

When Vladimir Putin decided to invade Ukraine, he thought it would be an easy, three-day war where he would emerge victorious, with no significant cost to him or Russia. He assumed that the Ukrainians wouldn’t fight back, and that the West would make empty statements of condemnation but would do nothing more because that was how we behaved with all his other transgressions. We were so addicted to his money, his oil – and so afraid of his intimidation – that he felt he had nothing to worry about.

As we now know, Putin grossly miscalculated. Ukrainians did fight back, and they fought back hard. It also turned out that the West did a lot more than make bland statements. Since 24 February 2022, the West has frozen $350bn in Russian central bank reserves, sanctioned its top oligarchs and, most importantly, has provided more than $150bn of military and financial aid to Ukraine.

What started out looking like an unfair fight with Ukraine being a loser has turned into a stalemate.

If the current situation continues for any length of time, Putin probably could not maintain power. The Russians have lost too many soldiers (more than 300,000, at last count), too much equipment and too much money for this to go indefinitely. For Putin, if he loses this war, he will surely lose power – and if he loses power, he is at risk of losing his life.

But Putin has found an extraordinary saviour: Viktor Orban of Hungary.

Even though public opinion in Europe is massively on the side of Ukraine, there is a not-very-well-understood clause in the European charter which says that all foreign policy decisions require unanimous consent of all member states.

This means that any foreign policy decision like providing military or financial aid to Ukraine, can be blocked by any member state without giving any explanation, any transparency or any accountability.

And that is exactly what is happening now.

As we approach the war’s second anniversary, the EU has committed to providing Ukraine with €50bn of aid. That is money that Ukrainians desperately need to keep Russians from stealing their territory and overpowering them.

Last Friday, Hungary’s prime minister, who has regularly made statements supporting Putin, announced that his country would block this aid. As a result, the full EU aid package to Ukraine has been delayed, and may not materialise at all. If it does not materialise, it would be hard to imagine that Putin would not achieve his original war aims of occupying Ukraine.

If that were to happen, it would not be an exaggeration to say that Putin’s next step would be to attack Poland or Estonia, who are Nato members; he and his aides have pretty much said so. To draw this situation to its most pessimistic conclusion, Hungary’s veto could potentially lead to a situation where Nato countries are forced to be at war with Russia or for the Nato Treaty to be torn up, with Putin seizing the Baltic countries or Poland as a consequence.

Meanwhile, Hungary’s transition into Putin’s trojan horse is complete. Having single-handedly thwarted the EU’s wish to give aid to Ukraine, Orban – whose country has a population of just 10 million people, which is 2.2 per cent of the entire European Union – is now shaping up to thwart opening accession negotiations with Kyiv.

I don’t think anyone could have contemplated a situation where such a small country could try to use its leverage under the EU charter to lead us into a third world war.

Something must be done to either suspend Hungary from EU foreign policy decision-making – or change the decision-making rules so world peace is not hijacked by one Putin-sympathising EU leader.