KevinC
23972
The article is long but it’s an interesting read that relates to the question we’ve been discussing.
Hungarians presumably have access to all sorts of info outside of, well, Hungary. The fact that domination of the local media scene is so successful raises interesting questions. Europeans in general seem, to this outsider, to have as a rule a lot of access to and be more acclimated to sources of info outside their own country, probably due to the political geography of Europe. Americans have the access but due to our own political geography, not the interest. If Hungarians are being persuaded by Orban’s media blitz, which runs counter to the content coming from nearly every other non-Russian European source, what does that mean? Are Hungarians insular and nationalistic to the point they ignore anything that originates elsewhere?
There’s not a lot of information from outside Hungary in Hungarian, for one.
Poland has had a pretty contentious relationship with Russia going back centuries, hasn’t it?
ShivaX
23976
Yeah, I suspect a lot of Poland’s resistance comes from being Poland.
The Soviets did crush Hungary, but historically there is less of a “constantly screwed by Russia specifically” going on there. I suspect Orban being their leader matters quite a bit too.
“They’re not like that anymore,” is probably an easier sell in Hungary than Poland, where the prevailing viewpoint is: “They’ve always been bastards, Russia, Soviet Union, it doesn’t matter. They’re always out to get us and always will be.”
Alstein
23977
Poles have a long-standing centuries-long grudge against Russians.
Hungarians not so much.
Probably true. I guess I’m sort of thinking that Hungarians are as multi-lingual as it seems a lot of Germans or French or Dutch, etc. folks seem to be. My views might be skewed though by the company I keep, which is mostly highly educated academic sorts.
Grifman
23979
Hint of a possible Russian move on the Sumy axis:
strategy
23980
This is a Norwegian news story, so most will need translate, but it’s describes why the discussion that was had recently about whether tanks are “good enough” considers the problem from the wrong angle.
It’s an interview with a tank driver from the 92. mechanized brigade. The company he is in has 6 T-64 tanks. At the time of the interview, 4 of those are being feverishly repaired to try and get them back in action. They describe machines which are unreliable, and so old that they have trouble getting hold of parts which can be used to repair them.
Getting Leopard 2A4s into action will obviously make the greatest difference, but 200+ 1A5s with spare parts would still make a difference to this situation (as long as they are used correctly).
That being said, I suspect we’ll be seeing 2A4s deploying before the 1s at the rate that plan seems to be going.
Dejin
23981
This doesn’t look good. Pro-EU Moldovan Prime Minister resigns. Any thoughts from our Eastern European experts?
The President is still pro-EU. I wouldn’t worry too much.
This sums it up pretty well. Given the historical grudge against Russia, it is pretty surprising that Orban doesn’t face more opposition given his stance. The polls in Hungary are not far off from those in Germany or France.
I suppose it’s also naive to think that people will simply decide where they stand on the war out of spite. It doesn’t have to be as simple as “Russia = Bad”. There’s probably more at play.
I visited Budapest almost 20 years ago, and I went to a war museum, and it was pretty interesting to me that there wasn’t a single Warsaw Pact uniform, while they seemed to have no problem displaying their nazi ones.
Hungary has one of the lowest foreign language proficiency levels in Europe. Nearly as bad as the UK! Also probably fair to assume that what proficiency there is is concentrated among non-Orban voters. Support for Fidesz is very strongly negatively correlated with education.
In addition to not hating Russia enough Hungarians are also not very cordial to Ukraine. Western Ukraine was a part of Austria-Hungary and, well, of the Hungarian part of this state. Thanks to EU limits Hungary didn’t turn into an East European dictatorship a la Belarus, but it can become that still.
Russian media also tries to fuel this warmongering, but they only talk about Poland planning to capture West Ukraine, not Hungary. Russia really wants good old spheres of influence and territorial claims to come back into fashion. Trying to ride that deglobalization wave.
Grifman
23986
The US gears up but will it be enough and in time:
Grifman
23987
Thanks, that was helpful.
It seems that up until 2016, even if there were unresolved issues, they actually had a pretty fruitful relationship. Orban supported Ukraine’s application to become an EU member as late as 2016.
In 2017 that changed with the Ukrainian language law, which made Ukrainian the official language in secondary schools, and was aimed at the Russian minority, but it also ended up impacting the Hungarian minority, which more or less destroyed the relationship between Hungary and Ukraine.
KevinC
23990
Today’s UK MoD assessment summary.
50% casualty rate among convicts? 175,000 - 200,000 casualties with a 1:4 death/casualty ratio? Yikes.
rrmorton
23991
My hot take: I dislike all the death happening over there and would like this war to come to an end already. I mean, goddamn.
