Is There Still Time to Prevent a NATO-Russia War?

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said at a ministerial meeting of the military bloc in Prague on May 31 that NATO is preparing for a protracted war with Russia but there is still a chance to prevent that from happening.

NATO member states have approved Kiev’s use of Western-supplied weapons to strike targets deep inside Russia. Earlier in the day, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Ukraine had the right to self-defense, which included the right to strike legitimate military targets inside Russian territory.

These steps are being taken to prepare “for a long war, for many years,” Mr. Szijjarto was quoted by Hungary's Magyar Nemzet newspaper as saying.

“The war express has departed from the penultimate station,” he added, and the question is whether there is still a chance to stop it.

“There is only one emergency brake left,” Hungary’s foreign minister said, referring to European Parliament elections in June. Europeans “can make it clear to their governments that they do not want to live in a war in Europe for a long time,” Mr Szijjarto added.

Hungary has previously called for a ceasefire and peace talks to resolve the Ukraine conflict. Budapest has refused to send military aid to Kiev and repeatedly delayed EU sanctions against Moscow.

Hungary’s foreign minister has been a vocal critic of NATO’s stance on the conflict. Ahead of the Prague meeting, he said that “war hysteria” against Russia was leading Western leaders to increasingly adopt “crazy ideas” that could have serious consequences.

Last week, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban warned that Brussels and Washington may be preparing for a direct military conflict with Russia. Orban said Budapest was working to “redefine” its NATO membership so that it could opt out of the alliance’s “extraterritorial activities.”

Several other NATO member states such as Norway, Finland, Latvia, Poland and reportedly Germany have voiced support for Kiev's use of long-range missiles to attack targets on Russian territory.

On May 30, US President Joe Biden reportedly secretly gave Ukraine the green light to use US-supplied weapons to attack targets in the Russian region bordering the Kharkiv region.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on May 30 that NATO member states, especially the United States, had “deliberately” launched a new escalation around Ukraine to prolong the “senseless war.”

He also warned that such actions would have consequences and harm the interests of countries that choose to escalate tensions.