The message of 1956 is the fight for sovereignty,
the fight for Hungarian sovereignty. But the Ukrainians are doing the same exact thing. For several days now, Balázs Orbán's team has been promising that they
would answer our questions. Based precisely on '56, we
probably would not have done, we would not have done what
President Zelensky did. We reached out to the PM's political director
because of his statements about 1956 and the war between Russia
and Ukraine. But since we have not received an answer
to our questions until now, on Monday morning we came to the political director's house,
to ask him in person. Good morning, director! May we ask what you meant
when you said that based on 1956, we would not have done what President Zelensky did
two and a half years ago? If you'll allow me, I would
separate this into two parts. One thing is, that the heroes of 1956 are the nation's heroes and they
deserve all respect. They did everything they were supposed to do, and the way they were supposed to. And the other thing, I don't think
there's anything surprising about it. For about the past two and a half years,
the Hungarian government's stance on the Russian-Ukrainian war
has remained unchanged, which is that there's no solution to this
conflict on the battlefield. Peace talks should be held,
and the sooner there would have been peace talks, perhaps
even before the invasion, or if the parties had managed
to come to an agreement during the Istanbul talks,
the better it would have been for everyone. But then what did you mean by
saying that we won't do, that we wouldn't do
what President Zelensky did. What is it that Zelensky did
that we would not do? Well, this was probably the part
that was easy to misunderstand where my wording
wasn't precise enough. And obviously, if I had hurt anyone with this, then I would
like to apologise for that. We have suggested to all...and this
is what the Prime Minister's peace mission was about too, that our recommendation to
both warring parties, so both to Ukraine and to Russia is that they should resolve this conflict
through peace talks. But they are thinking differently,
both parties see this differently, they would like to achieve
their goals by military means. In my opinion this is not good for
the world, and it's not good for Hungary. So then what exactly
did you mean? What is it that we wouldn't do, but which President Zelensky
did do two and a half years ago? Well, we believe it's worth negotiating in this situation, in the
Russian-Ukrainian war. That's what I was thinking about.
But they did negotiate. Yes, and there was actually an agreement. By the way, it's really interesting
to take a look at what Die Welt and some Western investigative journalists
wrote about this, about where the negotiations
came to a halt. I think this is bad for the whole world. What happened was that Russia attacked Ukraine. That's not what I'm talking about
but following the February attack. I'm talking about April, April of 2022, and how the
negotiations got stuck. In my opinion, that is a very sad story and a very sad
failure of diplomacy. And if the parties had managed
to come to an agreement back then, which - I repeat - according to
Western European reports was very,very close, that would have
made it possible to save many more lives. And then we wouldn't be
where we are today. But Russia basically wants
to put an end to Ukraine's sovereignty, and that is what
the whole attack has been about. Russia has never given an ultimatum to Ukraine, only to the EU
and to NATO. So they would't have had the opportunity
to accept any sort of an ultimatum. Or if they had, that would have meant that
the Ukrainian army would have practically ceased to be a force
capable of territorial defence. Look, the way I see it, on this matter,
former US president Trump is right because he says that
if there had been a different political leadership in place
in the West, for example in the United States, then this war
wouldn't even have started. So I don't think that avoiding this war would
have been impossible. Russia was clearly the side
which attacked, this obviously violates Ukraine's sovereignty, but looking
at it from today's political perspective, the question is how we can put
an end to this conflict. As we see it, it is possible to solve
this conflict by means of diplomacy. If the warring parties or anyone
willing to mediate were to ask us about what the best solution would be, then that is
what Hungary recommends. Thank you very much! So that is the message of 1956, that these kinds of conflicts
should be resolved by way of diplomacy? Is that what we learned from 1956? No, no, no. Then why did you say that?
That's the misunderstanding. The message of 1956 is
the fight for sovereignty, the fight for Hungarian sovereignty. But the Ukrainians are doing
the same exact thing... Yes, and that is their decision,
this is their war. We did say that we, of course, ...you wouldn't do it. No, of course, we wouldn't
do it in Ukraine, we would do it in Hungary. Thank you! But the Ukrainians...
I wish you good work! but the Ukrainians are
doing this in Ukraine... Why did you say that it would have led
to World War Three if the Americans had helped the revolutionaries
in 1956? After the presidential clemency scandal,
several Fidesz politicians pointed out that this showed that in their political family
mistakes have consequences. Unfortunately, we weren't able to ask Balázs Orbán whether there would
be a consequence to his mistake. But we are not giving up, so if you want to make sure to see our future
videos as well, subscribe to our channel.