It is interesting that Orban suddenly, after meeting with Putin, questioned the reliability of Ukraine as a transit link for gas supplies to Hungary. The Russian President, of course, wooed his Hungarian counterpart to support the project "Nord Stream-2," which Russia is going to build, but according to Russian propaganda - it has been already building.
Since Hungary has taken a position of solidarity with the countries of the Visegrad group and countries of Central Eastern Europe to counter this project (even though this position was not so active), Putin decided to continue the line to crack the unity of the Visegrad group and in general - the unity of the Central Eastern Europe. He succeeded.
He induced Orban by the fact that Hungary will not be left without gas in case of the construction of the "Nord Stream-2" (to bypass Ukraine, — ONLINE.UA) - it will receive gas via this route. And if the "Turkish Stream" and a link to Europe are also built, Hungary can get gas by such route. Then, they say, Hungary will lose nothing, it will only win, as Ukraine is "unreliable" transit link.
After that, Hungarian Prime Minister began to question the reliability of Ukraine as a transit link. But it should be noted that despite the hot scenario in Ukraine, initiated by the Russian aggression, there have been no accidents of disruption of gas supplies through Ukraine to Hungary for the past three years. As for the last 25 years. If, of course, we discard the interpretation of the Russian propaganda that the gas crises of 2006 and 2009 were initiated by the Ukrainian side. But, I think Budapest have understood long ago how things actually happened.
From another side, Budapest wasn't really such a consistent partner of Ukraine in the reverse gas supplies from Europe. There were several interruptions, and with rather strange reasons. Of course, this was explained by technical reasons.
Although Hungary was the second country - after Poland - that implemented a very broad-scale scheme (and very successfully) of reverse gas supply, however, we see that Hungary has been increasingly becoming a risk factor for Ukraine. And not only because of gas issues.
It is worth to recall that in March 2014, at the peak of Russian aggression against Ukraine, Crimean campaign in particular, Vladimir Zhirinovsky sent a letter to leaders of Central European countries, where, so to speak, he emphasized on the Ukrainian problem - on "the civil war" in Ukraine. And he called to "take care" of the rights of national minorities on the territory of Ukraine.
We know that the Hungarian national minority live compactly in Ukraine - in Transcarpathia. On the one hand, Budapest is tolerant enough, but on the other, we know that there are enough political forces in Hungary which stand in the revisionist positions. And even to an extent that Transcarpathia is part of Hungary, and that Hungarian minority rights are infringed or can be infringed if Ukraine somehow changes its legislation. And they believe, in fact, that Ukraine is an unstable, troubled country. Therefore, it is necessary for official Budapest to take care of the rights of the Hungarian minority in Ukraine. In order to prevent it from troubles during ambiguous events that occur in Ukraine.
Similar content is not rare among Hungarian political forces. This has not become the official position of Budapest, but we should not exclude various negative scenarios from this side because we see that with chaotization of the situation in the European Union there have been more facts of ignorance of international law from different sides, the relations between the Member States of the EU on certain issues have become increasingly problematic.
Putin, of course, is interested in opening a Western front against Ukraine. He is interested also in opening a Northern front - from the territory of Belarus. But the Western one is especially important to him; moreover, there is a sufficiently strong bridgehead here - an ally named Orban, who is called 'Victator' in Brussels: short for Victor, as a name, and dictator. Viktator.
In this context, dictators always find understanding on one or another basis. Especially when energy resources, natural gas, nuclear energy form such basis. But, I think Putin told to his counterpart Orban not only about gas and its benefits for Hungary (we mean Russian gas and Russian energy resources for Hungary). I do not rule out that Russia may push Hungary to the path of revisionist policy while promising different economic preferences.
It is quite difficult economic situation in Hungary as a result of implementation of the project called "Orbanomic". In this context, and taking into account Russian hyperactivity in other areas, including actions from inside Europe, we need to watch very closely on what Hungary will do. It would be wise to keep a fully staffed Army Corps in Western Ukraine. Just in case, in order there would be nothing unexpected then, as it was in Crimea or Eastern Ukraine.
Russia now prefers to work from the inside – from inside Ukraine, the European Union - bringing chaos to political situation. On October, 28, 2016, the Russians, "Gazprom" in particular, achieved a significant victory: the European Commission granted "Gazprom" to use 90% capacities of the OPAL pipeline (overland continuation of the "Nord Stream", by which gas from Russia could be delivered to Europe bypassing transit countries, — ONLINE.UA), violating the European legislation.
Of course, the European Commission rejects it because it is violation of the law. But Poland, for instance, filed a lawsuit to the European Court; and the European court, having considered the complaint, satisfied the demand of the Polish side and ordered the Commission to suspend the decision of October, 28.
But the problem still remains. And this problem lays, in fact, in the neglection of the common European interests and, in this case, the European energy legislation by some European countries (by more influential ones).
We are talking about the fact that Poland insists that the European Commission should return to the initial status quo, that is, only 50% use of the OPAL gas pipeline, in accordance with the current European legislation. The German side insists that this issue is not of Poland's concern, but it concerns exclusively German energy affairs and relations of Germany, of the German Regulator with Gazprom, since the gas pipeline passes only the territory of Germany. Well, here, in this case, Russia can triumph, because it brought serious disagreements both in interpretation of the European energy legislation and in relations between two very large member states of the European Union.
In this case, Ukraine has also spoken in solidarity with Poland; this issue affects our interests because it reduces the volume of transit through our territory. Ukraine and Poland have also partnered to counter the "Nord Stream-2" project, and the recent forum "Europe-Ukraine" in the Polish city Rzeszow confirmed this.
But at the same time, Russia continues to act on its own.
So we need consolidation of the Ukrainian-Polish efforts in this area. The problems arise here, too; they are, in fact, inspired to a large extent by Russia – these problems fall on the breeding Polish political ground, on the position of the current Polish political elite, which starts to look at current relations with Ukraine, including on cooperation in various fields, through the prism of historical tensions.
Therefore, in spite of all these troubles associated with the Russian attempt to open a Western front against Ukraine, we need to try to keep communication with our Central European partners. But, at the same time, we have to stand firm and not to allow them to interfere in our internal affairs so unceremoniously, as it just recently did the Delegation of the European Union to Ukraine, when it released a special statement regarding the support of a very controversial document that was prepared in the bowels of the Cabinet of Ministers on the policy regarding the occupied territories.
In this case, we should understand one thing: nobody - either in the East or in the West - deals with our problems, they promote their interests. So we need to defend our interests and put them above all else, to find the mechanism of mutual understanding with those who are our partners and friends, and clearly to put in place "hybrid friends", and to withstand the enemy. There is no other way, and should not be. Our national interests should prevail.
