Two major news items coming from Hungary over the past week have been studiously ignored by the corporate media in the United States.

One was Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s interview with the Swiss weekly Weltwoche on March 1, in which he called on the European Union to establish a NATO-like security body, but without the United States. The other was the demand on Feb. 28 by Hungary’s Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó that the United Nations conduct “a full and proper investigation” into the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines last fall.

Hungary is a key Central European country, a member of both NATO and the European Union. Orbán has led the country continuously for the past 12 years. Szijjártó is its chief diplomat. Their statements are remarkable, bordering on sensational in fact, but unfit to print, broadcast, or disseminate in any way by the Western media machine and its corporate social-media cohorts.

Since their remarks cannot be dismissed as “disinformation” (that word has become synonymous with “truth” in today’s America), they are simply ignored. It is not hard to understand why. As no major outlet has done so or is likely to do so in the future, we bring our readers a detailed account of what they had to say.

In his interview with Die Weltwoche Editor-in-Chief Roger Köppel, Viktor Orbán talked about the war, paths to peace, his encounters with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Europe’s dramatic weakness, and his own political achievements. He also stressed that Christian teaching can be applied in modern politics.

“There are some who want to force us into the war,” Orbán said, according to the full transcript on his own website. The most important lesson of the war in Ukraine, he said, is that “Europe has retired from the debate.”

“In the decisions adopted in Brussels,” he added, “I recognize American interests more frequently than European ones.” In a war on European soil, “the Americans have the final word.” The problem is that “we have no European identity either emotionally, or intellectually.”

Orbán declared it unfortunate that Donald Trump lost the elections in the United States because if the former Republican president had won, “there would have been no war.” He added that the current German government, which came to power in December 2021, has also contributed to starting the war in Ukraine and that the deeper causes of Europe’s weakness can be found in the EU, because “it is destroying the nation states without replacing them with anything workable.”

As for the outcome of the Russo-Ukrainian War, Orbán said “no one can win it,” and that the current stalemate can easily escalate into a world war. He recalled that two weeks before the onset of Russia’s “special military operation,” when he met with Putin in Moscow, the Russian President told him that Hungary’s NATO membership was not a problem, only that of Ukraine and Georgia:

Putin has a problem—this is what he told me—with the American missile bases already created in Romania and Poland, and with NATO’s potential expansion towards Ukraine and Georgia in order to station armaments there. Additionally, the Americans terminated important disarmament treaties. This is why Putin could no longer have a good night’s sleep.

In the most noteworthy part of the interview, Orbán said that Europe must be able to defend itself: “A European NATO would be the solution. I suggested this already back in 2012 … This is the order: we must wish for peace, we must then want it, and we must finally create peace. Today, this desire, this will is missing, at least in the West.” Orbán then contrasted that lack of will with those who actually do want peace: the Chinese, the Indians, the Arabs, the Turks, and the Brazilians.

“The West has lost its ability to unite the world in the interest of a single cause,” Orbán went on. “Its philosophical tenets are limited in space.” He was speaking from the Hungarian experience:

Whenever the Democrats are in power in Washington, we run to shelter. They always want to change us, the same as politicians in Brussels. They want to tell us how to manage migration and how to teach our children. This shows a lack of respect … This is why we look forward to our Republican friends returning to power again.

On immigration, Orbán said that in the short term the biggest threat lies in the deterioration of public security and terrorism. “In the medium term, in economic losses. In the long term, in one not recognizing one’s own country, in one losing one’s own country.”

Regarding gender ideology, Orbán pointed out that children between the ages of 14 and 18 must be allowed to “grow into the world. During this period, their identity must be strengthened, rather than weakened and made uncertain, as gender ideologists do. With this they’re destroying our children. Irrevocably, irreversibly. They have no right to do that.”

Before Orbán’s interview on Feb. 28, Hungary’s Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó called for a UN investigation into the “scandalous“ attack on the Nord Stream pipelines, which he described as an act of terrorism. Two major pipelines connecting Russia to Germany were deliberately destroyed in September 2022, contributing to Europe’s energy dependence on the United States and prompting European countries to support the escalation of the conflict in Ukraine.

At the moment, the only investigation into the pipeline sabotage is the one conducted by Germany, and it is a joke. Almost six months after the attack, the German authorities say they are still looking for those responsible. The investigation has not moved beyond the statement that persons unknown are suspected of “deliberately causing an explosion” and “anticonstitutional sabotage.”

China already has demanded that the United States “explain itself to the world” over claims made by Seymour Hersh that the explosives were planted by U.S. Navy divers in June 2022 under the guise of NATO’s BALTOPS 22 exercise and detonated three months later by a remote signal from a sonar buoy. One source told Hersh that the plotters knew the covert operation was an “act of war,” with some in the CIA and State Department warning, “Don’t do this. It’s stupid and will be a political nightmare if it comes out.”

Hungary has now added its voice to the call for a full and proper investigation, demanding to know “who committed it and why.” Szijjártó said that the truth must be uncovered and that the investigation would be of utmost international importance. Budapest is urging the UN to conduct a “comprehensive, deep, structured and detailed” probe, which would act as a “platform for countries to talk to each other, who even consider each other as enemies.”

Let us hope that Mr. Orbán has a solid and reliable security detail, in case the likely Nord Stream saboteurs start transitioning into the Pannonian assassins.