On Saturday, the government's new advertisement "exploded", illustrating the Brussels sanctions with a bomb for effect. Although the campaign debuted on the Hungarian government's official Facebook page, it didn't take long for the tasteful posters to hit the streets.
So while hundreds of people are currently dying in bomb attacks in neighbouring Ukraine, Hungarian passers-by are reminded that the "Brussels sanctions" - which the government voted for without exception - are "destroying us".
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Yesterday's news that the Orban government has decided that Hungary will not participate in the EU military training mission to Ukraine. Today's news that the governing parties will not hold a central commemoration on 23 October.
These announcements fit perfectly into the pattern of the government's domestic and foreign policy actions over the past six months. It can be seen that Fidesz is subordinating everything to a single goal, and that is to ensure that nothing jeopardises the flow of Russian gas to Hungary.
Over the last twelve years, Viktor Orbán has staked the country's future and energy security on a single card, and that is the relationship with Russia and total dependence on Russian energy. After the outbreak of Putin's war, this vulnerable situation led Hungary to a complete dead end.
Viktor Orbán has lost his political capacity to act, and Hungary cannot be considered a sovereign state because the government's decision-making policy is determined by a single factor, and that factor is the whim of a foreign oppressive power.
In all its decisions, the government avoids situations that could cause even the slightest inconvenience to Russia. The only exception to this is the vote for EU sanctions. In the spring, the government got involved in this too - remember the Patriarch Kirill affair - and then tried to stall the next package, but then backed down after a few days and has been voting everything through ever since. On sanctions, the government may have been given a signal that the cost of further digging in could be even higher if Russia cuts off gas supplies.
Hungary could rely on four sources of gas: domestic production of roughly 1.5 bcm, 1 bcm of LNG from Croatia, 4.5 bcm from the Russian long-term gas contract, and a further 4 bcm of gas purchased from the market to cover 11 bcm of consumption.
The amount of gas on the market has been significantly reduced due to the European gas sanctions imposed by Russia, so if the country loses the Russian source, we will be essentially without gas next year.
The government is currently pinning everything on this, no other considerations matter. They don't even want to tease the Russians into taking steps to ease dependence. There are no energy efficiency projects, there is no effort to find and secure alternative sources, nothing is being done to change this situation, apart from hasty and ill-considered sham measures.
In fact, they cannot do anything, because the country's financial situation is getting worse, the corruption of the system is pushing EU funds further and further away, and the absolute serving of Russian interests has already pushed Hungary out of our federal system from the periphery.
And so we have become Gazprom's happiest hut.
