Orban said that the EU “shot itself in the chest” with sanctions against the Russian Federation .
Viktor Orban ,
KYIV. UkraineGate.15. July . 2022 | Political News .
In an interview with Kossuth Radio , Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán repeated the Kremlin’s narrative that sanctions against the Russian Federation allegedly cause more damage to those who impose them, saying that “the sanctions policy did not live up to expectations,” .
Details
The most important thing is for Brussels to see: “mistakes were made, the sanctions policy did not live up to the expectations placed on it, in fact it had the opposite effect,” he assessed.
Orban said that “they” thought that the sanctions policy would hurt the Russians more than the Europeans, “but it hurts us more.” According to him, “they” thought that the war could be shortened in time with the help of sanctions policy, because it is possible to quickly achieve success by weakening Russia, but this allegedly did not work, and “the war dragged on.”
“At first I thought we just shot ourselves in the foot, but now it seems that the European economy shot itself in the lungs, and that’s why it’s suffocating now,” Orbán said.
In this context, he mentioned energy carriers, adding that there will be countries where there will be gas, but the price will be very high, and “we belong to the last category.”
Addition
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, the EU agreed to a six-pack of sanctions, which include an asset freeze and visa ban on Russian oligarchs and officials, export controls, a freeze on central bank assets, disconnection of banks from the SWIFT messaging system, and a ban on imports of Russian coal and oil. .
The sixth package was the most time-consuming when, after much wrangling, the EU imposed, among other things, a partial embargo on Russian crude oil imported by sea until the end of the year, albeit with the exception of Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, which were allowed to receive oil transported by pipeline. and excluded one of the last major Russian banks from the SWIFT system.
However, at the last moment, Hungary demanded that EU ambassadors, who gathered to finalize the legal text of the EU sanctions package, exclude the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, from the list of sanctioned persons, which left an unpleasant impression on many.
Source: Ukrgate