Analysis
Politics
Projects
How Orbán’s Anti-Ukraine Crusade Fuels Hungary’s Election War Machine
10 October 2025
According to foreign policy analysts, the Kremlin is playing a game of chicken — in other words, who is the coward. Experts and diplomats alike advise the European Union (EU) not to give in to Russian pressure. However, it’s not the EU, but two allies with significant capabilities that would play a key role in such a confrontation.
The rumble of heavy combat equipment could not be unheard. It was 2015 when the photographer and I watched the battle over the important eastern Ukrainian transport hub of Debaltsevo.
From a safe distance in a snowy field, we saw wounded Ukrainian soldiers returning from the basin.
Horrified, they talked about unmarked Russian soldiers and the newest Russian tanks they had with them. They had come to help the separatists gain strategic territories in the east of Ukraine. It was the largest Russian invasion of Ukraine since the annexation of Crimea and the provoking of the war in Donbas in 2014.
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