‘If we do not want war not to catch up with us, we must stop it: now!’

Ladies and Gentlemen, peace-loving Hungarians from all over the world – from within our borders and beyond them,
  Greetings to you all. We send our greetings to the Hungarians of Transcarpathia, and ask God to bestow His blessings on them: on the Hungarians of Transcarpathia, who, for two years, have been waiting for the end of this war – in the shadow of the war’s horrors, vulnerable and deprived of their rights. We wish you the strength to persevere, we are with you, we are thinking of you, and we offer you this reassurance: the day is not far off when your fate will change for the better. And we also send our greetings to Robert Fico, the pro-peace Prime Minister of Slovakia. Robert Fico was shot because he stood for peace. He almost gave his life for peace. But he is made of sterner stuff than most: he is not the kind of man to let himself be taken down; he will return to be with us, and Slovakia will continue to fight alongside Hungary for peace. We look forward to your return Robert. Get well soon!
  We will need every drop of energy, because the task ahead of us is as big as any we have ever seen: we must prevent Europe from rushing into war, from rushing to its own destruction.
  My Friends,
  Today Europe is preparing for war. Every day another section of the road to hell is handed over. Every day we are besieged with the demand for hundreds of billions of euros for Ukraine, the deployment of nuclear weapons in the middle of Europe, and the conscription of our sons into a foreign army: into a NATO mission in Ukraine, into European military units sent to Ukraine. My Friends, it seems that the pro-war train has no brakes and the driver has gone mad. […] We must pull the emergency cord, so that at least those who want to get off can do so, and stay out of the war. […] Nor will we allow our children and grandchildren to be wagoned to the Ukrainian front. Stop war! […]
  My Friends,
  We are the only pro-peace government in the EU. The Vatican is also on the side of peace, but it represents a kingdom that is not of this world – and in an apostate Europe, that alone will not be enough to put the brakes on the speeding pro-war train. We need the weight and influence of pro-peace political forces. […]
  Those who support the war have placed themselves outside the bounds of common sense. Supporters of the war have become intoxicated. They want to defeat Russia, as was attempted in the First and Second World Wars. They are even ready to clash with the whole of the East. They think that they will win this war. But the intoxication of war is like a drug: those who are in its grip accept no personal responsibility for anything. They listen to no one. They step over you. They feel no remorse. They care nothing for us, or for you, your life, your family, the house you have worked for, or the future that you work for every day. They care nothing for the future of your children. They cannot be convinced. And so what we must do is not convince them, but defeat them.
  Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Friends,
  The founding fathers of the European Union were right: Europe cannot endure another war. This was why the European Union was created. Before the First World War, Europe was master of the world. After the Second World War, it was no longer master of itself, occupied by foreign empires in the West and the East. Now we play second fiddle. As things stand, after another war Europe will not even be in the orchestra setting the rhythm of the world – if there is any orchestra at all. This is even truer for Hungary: in war, we have nothing to gain and everything to lose. In the past we were dragged into wars against our will, and we lost. And thus would it be now, in 2024. In the First World War we lost two-thirds of our country. In the Second World War, the Hungarian army’s battle-ready forces were destroyed on foreign soil. No one was left to defend the homeland, our land, our women and children. We did not even have enough strength left to negotiate with the prospective victors. In the two world wars we Hungarians lost one and a half million lives – and with them, the future children and grandchildren they would have had. What a strong country we would have if they were among us! And now we are again receiving demands to take part in a new war. I shall say this slowly, so that Brussels, too, understands: we shall not go to war. We shall not go east for a third time, we shall not go to the Russian front again. We have been there before, and we have no business being there. We shall not sacrifice young Hungarians so that the war speculators can make a financial killing. We reject the war plan that has been devised for money, for the acquisition of assets in Ukraine, and for the interests of great powers. It is an old plan and we know it well. Already thirty years ago, George Soros wrote his own script for subversion, according to which Russia could be defeated by Western technology and the deployment of Eastern European manpower. And those whose lives are lost can be replaced by migrants. […]
  Today the pro-war leaders are in the majority. But this is not the first time we Hungarians have been threateningly outnumbered. We have learned that battles must be won not in space, but in time. Time itself must always be won. Those who win time, win peace. Since the conquest of our homeland, we have had to survive many wars, and we are still here. And it is still we who are here. […]
  Today Hungary is stronger than at any time in the last hundred years. A calm and strong island in the middle of Europe. Inwards cooperation, and outwards unity. This is the secret of success. This is why we still live in peace today. But the crucial question is already banging on our door: Will we give up our peace? To renounce peace is to die for Ukraine. Do we want to shed Hungarian blood for Ukraine? We do not! We shall not go to war, and we shall not die for others on foreign soil. This is the truth of the Hungarians. And now it is our task, if God allows it, to turn the truth of the Hungarians into the truth of Europe.
  Dear Friends, Dear Peace March,
  Europe has never seen an election¹ like this one. On election day, guns will be blazing in a neighbouring country. Great wars do not come out of nowhere. Economic crisis, shortage of raw materials, arms competition, pandemics, false prophets, assassination attempts, sinister shadows all around us. This is how it starts. There have been generations on this earth – our grandparents and great-grandparents – whose worst nightmares became reality. We observe the signs. We see the writing on the wall. Hungarians know the nature of war. They know that a war always ends differently from the way it was first imagined. This is why today millions of young Europeans lie in mass graves. This is why there are not enough Europeans, why there are not enough European children. War kills. Someone dies with a gun in his hands. Someone dies while fleeing. Someone dies under bombardment. Someone dies in an enemy’s prison. Someone dies in a pandemic. Someone dies of starvation. Someone is tortured. Someone is raped. Someone is taken into slavery. The lines of graves are endless. Mothers weep for their sons. Women weep for their husbands. So many lives lost. One thing we know: wherever war sets its foot, there is no escape. War will catch up with you: you cannot dodge it, you cannot hide from it.
  The only antidote to war is peace: to stay out of the war and maintain Hungary as an island of peace. This is our mission. And if we do not want war not to catch up with us, we must stop it: now!
  This peace cannot be won with weapons. This war cannot be resolved on the battlefield, where you only find corpses and destruction. There must be a ceasefire and there must be negotiations. […]  •

¹ Viktor Orbán is referring to the European Parliament elections on 6-9 June 2024. The speech on 1 June was also part of the election campaign.

Source: Original: https://miniszterelnok.hu/orban-viktor-beszede-a-bekemeneten/;
authorised English version: https://miniszterelnok.hu/en/speech-by-prime-minister-victor-orban-at-the-peace-march/