Hungary is offering Ukrainians strategic cooperation rather than final EU integration for fear of being drawn into war, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said on the X platform.

Orbán posted a fragment of his own interview with a Hungarian TV channel.

“Hungary is offering strategic cooperation with Ukraine – pragmatic, flexible and based on mutual interests, not irreversible integration. Ukraine’s EU membership would bring war to the heart of Europe, and our families should not face risk,” the Hungarian Prime Minister wrote on the social network.

“We have a proposal for Ukrainians, because we do not see Ukrainians as enemies. Maybe they see us as enemies, but we do not see them as enemies. And we believe that there should be orderly cooperation between Ukraine and the European Union. Orderly and well-organized cooperation that does not pose a threat of war to the Union. So we cannot talk about membership, it is irreversible. Once we accept it, we can accept the fate of such a country,” Orbán said in an interview published by him on X.

“And today, Ukraine’s fate is to be a buffer state bordering russia. We do not want such a fate. Hungarians have just avoided it. We were also a buffer state during the Cold War. We were not part of the Soviet Union, but we were on the western perimeter of the Soviet Union, on the eastern perimeter of the Western world, but we were a buffer. We… do not want to return to this position. Ukraine is in such a situation. It may be uncomfortable, it may not be good, and someone wants to escape from it, but the fact is that the country’s address cannot be changed,” Orbán added.

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