Budapest witnessed a peace march of hundreds of thousands yesterday, with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán addressing the crowd. He said, according to Reuters: “Never before have so many people lined up for peace. We are the biggest peace corps, the largest peacekeeping force in Europe. Europe must be prevented from rushing into war, into its own destruction.… In the two world wars, the Hungarians lost 1.5 million lives, and with them—their future children and grandchildren. I’m saying this slowly so that Brussels would understand. We will not go to war. We will not go to the East for a third time, we will not go to the Russian front again.”
Orbán urged everyone to support the “pro-peace and pro-sovereignty” agenda of the ruling Fidesz party in the June 6-9 European Parliament election. “Do we want to shed Hungarian blood for Ukraine? No, we don’t.… The pro-war [forces] have gone beyond common sense by wanting to defeat Russia as they tried to do during the First World War and the Second World War.”
