Following the imposition of U.S. sanctions against formerly Russian-based International Investment Bank (IIB)—now located in Budapest—Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said today that Hungary would abandon its role in the bank. The sanctions had “ruined it,” Orbán said.
“We have never agreed with sanctions but we don’t dispute others’ rights, including the United States, to impose sanctions,” he said. “Since the (outbreak) of the war, it’s been clear that the bank’s (IIB) possibilities were narrowing ... and now that the Americans have placed it under sanctions, they effectively ruined it,” Reuters quoted him as saying. (IIB was formed in 1970 by member-nations of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance—Comecon—explained Interfax on April 12. The bank’s member nations are Russia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Vietnam, Cuba, Mongolia, and Romania.)
Despite Reuters coverage of this apparent accession, Orbán did have some serious comments about the nature of the conflict between the West and Russia, and the danger that the world faces. Speaking to Kossuth radio station today, he said, the U.S. “has not abandoned its plan to shoehorn everyone into a military alliance.” “And if a world war breaks out, it will be a nuclear war,” Orbán noted. He warned that the current escalation of the conflict in Ukraine indicates that the major players are “inches away from the use of nuclear weapons,” TASS reported.
