According to the prime ministerial hopeful of the Hungarian left led by Ferenc Gyurcsany, the Ukrainian war is Hungary's war. On Wednesday the candidate likened the Russia-Ukraine conflict to the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, saying the neighbouring "brotherly nation" should not be abandoned, as the Hungarians were at the time . "While Mr Marki-Zay was expanding on an erroneously drawn historical analogy, he kept quiet about Ukraine receiving arms shipments from multiple European countries and about the European Union and the United States also sanctioning Russia," Mediaworks News Center pointed out on Friday.

The PM candidate of the Hungarian left, Peter Marki-Zay, argued for the war and drew false historical parallels at the last stop on his campaign trail, according to the Mediaworks News Center (MWH). At his closing campaign event held in the south Hungarian town of Pecs, in Baranya county, he said:

„Now, Ukraine is fighting Hungary’s war.”

The candidate compared the Ukraine-Russia war to the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, but the analogy does not hold up: the Hungarians at the time opposed the Rakosi dictatorship, but the Soviet army, in cooperation with Hungary’s communist leaders, stifled the war of independence with a bloodshed.

Mr Mark-Zay also neglected to tell the truth by stating that Ukraine is fighting alone, as President Volodymyr Zelensky continues to enjoy American and European support. According to the article, the left-wing prime ministerial candidate was also silent about the sanctions imposed on Russia since the outbreak of the war by the European Union and the United States, and about the arms shipments and other assistance that Ukraine regularly receives. The report recalls that the European Commission announced its plans at the end of February to spend 450 million euros on weapons, and another 50 million euros on medical and other equipment for Ukraine.

Mr Marki-Zay also argued for supporting Ukraine with weapons by citing the need to protect ethnic Hungarians living in Transcarpathia. This position is diametrically opposed to that of the Orban government, which refuses arms shipments and the transiting of such lethal aid shipments via Hungary to in order to protect the native Hungarians of Ukraine’s western region.

In the same speech, Mr Marki-Zay made a statement, more egregious than any other of his previous pro-war statements, when he deduced, through the examples of the Hungarian revolutions of 1848 and 1956, that the youth always fought for freedom, even at the cost of bloodshed. In his view, PM Orban has forgotten about this. However, young people still feel today, that

” indeed, young people still feel that blood is more important than oil. It is sad that there are some who have grown too old to remember this,” he said.

The candidate of the failed Socialist PM Ferenc Gyurcsany was once again advocating for supporting the war, as the entire Hungarian left has been doing for more than a month now.

MWH writes that the left-wing prime ministerial hopeful again demonstrated wanting to comply with the expectations of foreign countries by citing – almost word-for-word – the remarks of the Czech defense minister, who cancelled his scheduled attendance at the V4 meeting in Budapest, sag: “I have always supported the V4 and I am very sorry that cheap Russian oil is now more important to Hungarian politicians than Ukrainian blood.” In reference to this sentence, Mr Marki-Zay continued his leftist incitement to war that he launched long before the Russian invasion of Ukraine began.

Responding to a question by leftist activist Marton Gulyas in an online talk show on 13 February as to whether he – as prime minister – would provide military assistance if a conflict erupted, Ferenc Gyurcsany’s candidate replied: „Well, if NATO so decides, then even military assistance.”

This statement, 10 days before the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, made it chrystall-clear that the left’s goal was to plunge Hungary into the conflict.

MWH also recalls in its article that Mr Mark-Zay later reaffirmed his pro-war stance on ATV channel’s Straight Talk program when he stated, “So if NATO decides to support Ukraine even with weapons, of course we will also support it.”

Mr Marki-Zay went as far as uttering statements, such that he did in his usual weekly Facebook video published on 27 February, where he claimed that Viktor Orban was personally responsible for the war in Ukraine and the deaths of people. MWH writes, a day later, that the left’s candidate has falsely stated on social media that “Viktor Orban refuses to publicly admit Hungary’s military involvement, while asking our soldiers for sacrifice and the taking of risks. All this for a goal, for the interest of a foreign power that he supports through betrayal of his nation and its allies, through propaganda, spy-banks, and in many other ways.” Mr Marki-Zay’s statements were immediately refuted by the Hungarian government. Zoltan Kovacs, the state secretary for international communications, reacted by saying that Hungarian military planes delivering weapons to Ukraine is fake news. „Hungarian aircraft with Hungarian personnel, from and through Hungarian territory did not transport weapons to Ukraine,” he emphasized, adding that three Hungarian aircraft were performing related tasks within the framework of NATO’s multinational cooperation.

Ferenc Gyurcsany also incites, just like the entire pro-war Left

MWH’s article reveals that in addition to the PM candidate of the left, Democratic Coalition (DK) party President Ferenc Gyurcsany has also embarked on pro-war incitement. He attacked the government for not sending weapons to Ukraine on social media, also back in late February.

In his view, Viktor Orban misunderstood the situation when he justified the impossibility of arms transfers by saying that „Hungarians may be shot with those weapons, as Hungarians also live in Transcarpathia.” Contrary to Mr Gyurcsany’s claim, the Hungarian premier referred to the fact that it is not uncommon for the enemy to seize weapons, and since ethnic Hungarians from Transcarpathia are also serving in the Ukrainian army, these weapons can be used against them.

In addition, arms shipments would mean a concrete threat for Transcarpathia, as the Russians consider those a target to be destroyed.

Mr Gyurcsany’s most outrageous statement was a Facebook post in which he lashed out at Viktor Orban for rejecting Ukrainian President Zelensky’s provocative demands. „You will be a lousy person, or you die. Which one would you choose? Orban leaves this choice to Hungary, to you. We turn our heads away from the death and desecration of thousands, millions, because if we don’t, if we help, we will attract Satan’s vengeance and we will die ourselves,” he claims. Orbán says that the price of our lives is sin. „In order to survive, we have to become sh*tty people,” he says. He does not even try to offer the nation another way to go,” Mr Gyurcsany wrote in his post.

His former defence minister was also involved in the warmongering. Two days before the outbreak of the war, Ferenc Juhasz tried to call the Orban government to account about why it would not provide Hungarian ammunition to Ukraine to take down Russian troops.

Speaking about the lack of Hungarian military assistance, Democratic Coalition (DK) MEP Sandor Ronai said on ATV’s morning show that he was remorseful about the Hungarian government’s announcement “that we’re not helping 100 per cent, because other EU member states are helping with arms shipments, for example.” Mr Ronai added that in his view this would not endanger the ethnic Hungarian community in Transcarpathia.

Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, opposition Momentum’s politicians have been demanding that Hungary send weapons and even troops to the front line. The warmongering was spearheaded by MEP Katalin Cseh, who said the following in a video posted on her social media page on 1 March. „On 1 February (Momentum chief – ed.) Andras Fekete-Gyor wrote a piece about how it might not be a bad idea as a war is fought with weapons, and now Viktor Orban is so alone opposing this that I think that there are hardly any countries in the whole of the European Union which say this, and certainly none in our region. So it’s clear that NATO has to help Ukraine by giving them the weapons to fight this war.”

Momentum’s MEP has made it clear that she believes Hungary should also supply arms to Ukraine.

Former party chairman Andras Fekete-Gyor also struck a belligerent tone in a piece published on the Magyar Hang (Hungarian Voice) portal on 1 February. The fallen party chief then said that a responsible Hungarian government should work to prevent war. „A deterrence policy is needed. Together with our NATO and EU allies, we can envisage steps that would significantly increase the costs for Moscow if they decide to launch an offensive. “First of all – like our allies – we must offer arms and humanitarian aid to the Ukrainian government, to contribute to the protection of the Hungarian minority living in Transcarpathia,” the politician of the Momentum party wrote.

Daniel Berg, another member of the Momentum party, is calling for military equipment to be sent to Ukraine and for letting military supplies to pass through Hungary.

Momentum was given the signal to incite by its liberal EP party family late February, when the leaders of the ALDE member parties adopted a strongly militaristic declaration. Some of the points of the communique, including the call for tougher sanctions and military assistance, have been posted several times by Mr Berg on his Facebook page. He also said that ALDE – of which he is vice president – „will do everything in its power to hold Russian President Vladimir Putin to account as a war criminal in The Hague.”

Another member party of the leftist coalition, Jobbik has also joined the warmongering choir when at a local public forum at the beginning of March, Anita Korosi Patocska, the party’s VP running for another term as MP, said that they would send Hungarian troops to the front line. The leftist MP candidate made the following remarks: “If there is a war in which NATO is involved, then of course, soldiers must go and fight, but we are not sending civilians […] “I also have a husband, who would be conscripted, and also two sons of military age. Well, obviously, I don’t want my children and husband to be drafted. […] But those who joined the army did so knowing that if NATO sends them to war, then they will board a plane and go to war. Because that’s what they get paid for. They chose this profession, this vocation,” she said.

But Janos Kendernay, former co-chair of the leftist LMP party, would also send weapons and Hungarian troops to the war in Ukraine. As MWH underlined, the politician – who was unsuccessful in last year’s leftist primaries – said in response to a comment on his Facebook post of 27 February that Peter Marki-Zay „had claimed,and rightly so, that if NATO so decides, then troops and arms will go (…) And as not one or two Western states are already supplying weapons to Ukraine, I would not be surprised if Hungary did the same.”

Pastor Gabor Ivanyi – whose name also emerged earlier as the left’s presidential candidate – said at the left’s commemoration event on Hungary’s national holiday on 15 March – that it was a shame that the government was not sending weapons to Ukraine.

The most obvious pro-war remarks uttered so far clearly show that if it was up to the left, it would put Hungary into harm’s way with its irresponsible pro-war policies, Mediaworks News Centre concludes.