“If we did what the Ukrainian president is asking for, we’d be in the third world war,” Orbán said.

He said that a favourable decision was reached in the end, with the majority not wanting to take on the risk of war and Ukraine was therefore not allowed to join.

Orbán said Ukrainians’ communication style was “undoubtedly unusual” considering that “when you are in trouble and ask for help, you should behave correctly”.

However, “Ukrainians are aggressive, making demands” while the people in Ukraine die by the hundreds and thousands on a daily basis, he added.

The Ukrainians “are in great trouble, they face matters of life and death, and they see the world very differently from us”, he said.

Orbán said it was important that “we should not accept the perspective through which they look at the world because if we accept it, then we will slip into the war”.

Those countries that supply weapons to Ukraine are already involved in the war, he said. Although Ukrainians have not been admitted into NATO and the direct threat of world war has been avoided, “we have not progressed closer to peace even by an inch,” he said.

On the contrary, there is an escalation, with new and increasingly long-range weapons and effective explosives that the Ukrainians receive from western states, especially from the US, he said.

“So the situation continues to be extremely dangerous,” he said. In the Christian world “where we belong” the most important issue, which Hungary also argues for, is ceasefire and peace talks. It is also important for Hungarians because the war is in a neighbouring country and “various escalations could reach Transcarpathia and then Hungary”, he said.

Orbán said that he agreed with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that the United States could end the war in Ukraine with immediate effect.

He added that nobody knew why this was not happening. Ukraine has already lost it sovereignty, it has no money, no defence industry and no ability to manufacture military equipment, Orbán said.

“It receives money from us also, mostly from the Americans” and also military equipment, he added.

If the US said that it wanted peace and the war must be stopped, there must be a ceasefire and talks should be started, it would happen the following day,

Orbán said. “As to why the Americans don’t want this, we did not get an answer even at the NATO summit,” he said.

Orbán: 'Westerners Want War to Continue'

The conflict in Ukraine will be drawn out because “westerners want the war to continue”, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said.

Orbán told public radio that “the government has very different tasks, and Hungarians will have a very different future, depending on whether there is a war or not”.

“The proportion and number of pro-war supporters remains overwhelming and there are hardly any of us using the voice of peace,” Orbán said.

“We must be prepared that the war and sanctions will not disappear from our lives,” he added. If it actually happened, “a large part of the economic troubles would be fixed”.

Orbán said that in the current situation “we must bring down inflation … we discontinue certain measures and introduce others, whatever works we will keep”.

He said the price monitoring system was very helpful in this regard and added that mandatory food discounts had also been introduced.

“We can see that the inflation rate will decrease every month,” he added. He said a cabinet meeting held in Sopronbánfalva, western Hungary, discussed ways to keep the war and illegal migrants away from Hungary and “protect families and pensioners from plans made by Brussels bureaucrats”.