I, personally, demand to know what happened to those zebras

Péter Magyar's first visit abroad as prime minister brought him to Poland. Is it the beginning of a beautiful friendship?

We hope it's a resumption of a beautiful friendship. We had populist governments in both Hungary and Poland and we now have pro-European governments in both countries.

Were you surprised by the election result?

I have to grant it to Viktor Orbán. It's not easy to have to simultaneously have the support of China, Russia, and the United States and to still lose the election. But just as by 2023 in Poland, by this April, people in Hungary had had enough of corruption and of unnecessary fights with the European Union. And the fact that even though your electoral system was skewed, the media were all playing on one team, even though Pegasus was used against journalists and against the opposition, just as it was here during the previous (PiS-led) government, in the end, the judgment of the people means that you can set things right.

After their talks, both Donald Tusk and Péter Magyar spoke about the importance of restoring relations. However, aren’t support for Ukraine and the stance on importing Russian energy sources factors that could continue to stand in the way of agreement between the two countries?

Nobody expects Hungary to have identical interests to other countries. Of course, you have your national interests and you will fight for them as energetically as we fight for ours. But what we hope will happen is that it will be within the framework of the rules of our community and with some eye to the welfare of Europe, the European Union as a whole.

And we hope that where we disagree, Hungary will be capable of justifying its position and not spitefully vetoing to please some outside sponsors.

Would continuing to import Russian energy resources therefore be an obstacle to good Hungarian–Polish relations? After all, you previously posted that you hoped the Ukrainian drone commander, Robert Brovdi from Transcarpathia—whose callsign is “Magyar”—would finally take out the Druzhba oil pipeline.

Well, we used to buy oil and gas from Russia. We stopped when Russia started invading her neighbors because it's how she funds the project to reestablish the Russian Empire. And so I hope that the new government will look at the alternative offers for supplying Hungary with gas and oil.

Both of our countries import. We get about a third of our gas in Poland, but we import much more from Norway, on our pipeline, as well as from the United States and from Qatar. And you can get oil from several places in the market via the sea.

So I hope that the new government will look at the alternative offers for supplying Hungary with gas and oil. I’m no expert on the oil market, but the European Commission and Croatia claim that they can supply the gas from an alternative source and the alternative route has a competitive price. I'm sure Hungary will decide what's best for Hungary, but with that in mind, rather than to please Lavrov or Putin.

In your opinion, was the Orbán government Russia's Trojan horse in the European Union?

I hope the new government will uncover how much the actions of the previous government were driven by ideological convictions and how much by other personal interests.

I was surprised by the tone of the conversations between Péter Szijjártó and Sergey Lavrov. There was, you know, your previous government, just like our previous government, was very vocal on sovereignty and on standing up to foreign pressures. And those tapes seemed to show an eagerness to please a country that is not friendly, either to NATO or to the European Union, and indeed with whom both Poland and Hungary have a difficult history.

Given this, constantly invoking sovereignty seemed hypocritical. Both of our countries aspired to join the West when our sovereignty really was limited because as you learned to your cost, when you try to leave the Warsaw Pact, you are invaded. That's what limited sovereignty looks like. When you lose a vote in Brussels, that's just democracy at work. That's not the loss of sovereignty. And I never thought that people who fought communism would mouth Soviet and Russian propaganda about the rotten West. Which is why what they did was a betrayal of solidarity and of the fight in 1956.

What do you expect from Hungary under the new administration?

Well, we hope that Hungary will ceases to veto us from doing what we want to do. We wanted to give a loan to Ukraine to continue to be able to continue to resist. I understand that Hungary doesn't want to join in the financing of that loan, but at least it's allowing us to do what we want.

I mean, we would have thought that helping a victim of aggression would be something that Hungary wouldn’t support? But you can make your own decisions. And we hope that Hungary will unblock the refunds from the European peace facility.

So it will simply be enough if Hungary doesn't behave as an obstacle?

Well, it's a good beginning. “Primum non nocere” – when politicians don't actively harm public good, hallelujah! We should already be, pleased. But we expect much more from Hungary. Your magnificent victory of pro-European forces have given a moral boost to people who think that rule of law, democracy, and honest government is a good thing.

The Orbán government was spending hundreds of millions of dollars of public money to promote a kind of populist, semi-authoritarian, international. Is it really in Hungary's interest to promote populism in Britain or in the United States? I hope that's all fixed as well.

We think membership in the European Union is a good thing. Europe is not ideal. Like every human institution, it needs nurturing and it needs correction from time to time, but spending public money in order to undermine or paralyze the European Union is something that we watched, followed with surprise and distaste.

But wait, before we….There is one thing also that we demand from Hungary, that I personally demand from Hungary. We demand to know what happened to the zebras, whether the European rules on animal welfare have been observed. And I hear some disturbing rumors about what happened to the zebras and I trust the free press to establish this.

There were several ministers in the Hungarian delegation. You met with Anita Orbán. What did you talk about?

It wasn’t the first time, we have already met in Munich in February. Well, there is a full agenda of Polish and Hungarian interests.

The agenda of the V4, which under Viktor Orbán went into a freeze. There are infrastructure issues, we want our region to be as well connected with pipelines, with railroads, with electricity interconnectors. It should be just as well connected as Western Europe.

Since we have recent experience in unlocking European funds…We had a productive conversation on that and I think Hungary is doing the right thing and has a chance to unlock, hopefully, all of those, even thought the time is short. It's a challenge. But the new government did what I would have done. Namely, without being asked, started the process of joining, for example, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, which immediately persuades everyone that it is serious about protecting European money.

Is it difficult to rebuild credibility?

It's a challenge, but there is a lot of goodwill because people are so genuinely moved by the mobilization of the people by the scene in the Hungarian parliament of the singing of the anthem of the European Union and the first policy moves. So you have a lot of goodwill all over Europe. And you're lucky in that the government will be able to take quick decisions.

How do you think the war can be ended in reality?

My working hypothesis is that it will end the way World War I ended when one side or the other runs out of resources. Without drones, Ukraine would have lost. And thanks to the drones, Ukraine has leveled the playing field and Russia is not only losing territory right now, but is sustaining losses that are felt by her economy.

We think that if Putin conquered Ukraine and gained access to the resources of Ukraine, he would become a threat to all of Europe, including you. But everybody makes their own judgment.

Orbán was trying to convince Hungarians that Ukraine was preparing to attack Hungary, which is a blatant lie, a complete invention of propaganda. I’m glad the Hungarian people didn’t fall for it.

Poland is one of Ukraine’s most vocal supporters. You’ve even clashed with Elon Musk over Starlink, which is indispensable in the drone war.

We pay for Starlink in Ukraine. You know, we're paying Musk 50 million dollars an hour. So we require good service and politeness.

And I have to overcome my inborn modesty and say that I apparently – the Ukrainians are convinced, they told me that my intervention with Elon Musk persuaded him to switch off the Starlinks that were ilegally used by the Russians. And apparently, it made a difference.

Drones are fundamentally reshaping military strategies. How can the EU or NATO make use of this experience?

It's not just drones, it's the systems of managing drones and it's not just aerial drones it's also sea drones it's also land drones. They are now taking Russian positions with land drones.

In this context, the possibility of cross-border defense industry cooperation—involving Ukraine within the SAFE program—was also raised during the Hungarian delegation's visit. After all, Ukraine now possesses the most advanced and cost-effective technology in the defense sector. A serious European defense policy is not possible without drawing on the lessons learned from this war. Ukraine’s defense against Russia has revolutionized warfare. It is best for everyone to be aware of this and to study the results.

Could Ukraine become a member of NATO in the foreseeable future?

Ukraine never received an invitation, just as it did not in 2008 at the NATO summit in Bucharest. One can debate whether this was a mistake. In any case, it is a fact that at the time of Russia’s annexation of Crimea, Ukraine was a neutral country, as enshrined in its own constitution. And yet, Putin invaded.

How do you see Poland's role in NATO?

We want to be the Rottweiler of NATO. We have to be, because we are on the front line with an unfriendly Russia. So we've been invaded by them repeatedly for 500 years. And we are determined not to be colonised ever again.