Hungary compares pressure from its Western allies to that of Hitler

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“We support continued aid to Ukraine and Ukraine’s ability to provide deterrence, but we do not want NATO to participate in this war,” Hakan, the head of diplomacy, said on Friday. Turkish.

For Ankara, “supporting Ukraine is one thing. But NATO’s involvement in the war is another.” This “risks leading to a regional extension (of the conflict) and greater crises.”

Imprisoned since October, Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva will be incarcerated until August 5. This was decided by the court in the Russian city of Kazan.

Aged 47, the journalist, who works for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, is suspected of “false information” about the Russian army, punishable by 15 years in prison. She was arrested in October on the pretext that she had not registered as a “foreign agent” when she came to Russia.

“Virtually every allied country has been a victim of Russia’s intensifying hybrid attacks,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday. “We know what they are doing and we will respond, individually and collectively if necessary,” he threatened.

For example, Russia removed last week the buoys demarcating its border with Estonia on the Narva River, Tallinn. The Polish security services announced on Wednesday the arrest of three people suspected of having started arson attacks “on behalf of” Russia in various regions of Poland. And at the end of April, a twenty-year-old British man was charged in the United Kingdom after being accused of organizing attacks against “businesses linked to Ukraine”.

The European Union decided on Friday to sanction Iranian Defense Minister Mohammad Reza Ashtiani, as well as the Navy of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, for having delivered drones and missiles to Russia.

Four people were killed and three others injured on Friday in Ukrainian bombings on the Donetsk region (eastern Ukraine), partially under Moscow’s control, Russian news agencies reported.

According to the latter, two women lost their lives in the town of Staromikhaïlivka and a man in that of Luganské in these Ukrainian strikes which also damaged houses and a clinic.

Poland said on Friday that a false article published by the national news agency PAP, according to which Poles were being mobilized to fight in Ukraine, was probably the result of a Russian cyberattack.

“Immediate measures were taken following a probable Russian cyberattack against the Polish news agency and the dissemination of disinformation messages about an alleged mobilization in Poland,” wrote Jacek Dobrzynski, spokesperson for the Polish intelligence services, on the social network

According to NATO Secretary General Jen Stoltenberg, the Alliance has already provided at least 40 billion euros in military aid to Ukraine per year. This is what he announced on Friday during a press briefing, adding that the Alliance must “maintain at least this level of support each year, for as long as necessary”.

Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed Friday “a step forward” after the green light given by the United States for kyiv to use weapons supplied by the Americans to strike, under conditions, targets on Russian soil. “This gives us the opportunity to defend our people who live in the villages along the border,” he said at the third Ukraine-Northern Europe summit.

G7 countries and their allies expressed “deep concern” Friday over growing military cooperation between North Korea and Moscow, and called on Pyongyang to stop its “illegal arms transfers” to Russia to wage its war against Ukraine.

Latest round of sanctions by the G7, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and the European Union “is a coordinated effort to hold the DPRK accountable [République populaire et démocratique de Corée] and Russia, and to impose a financial cost on actors and entities involved in illegal arms transfers from the DPRK to Russia intended to attack Ukraine,” they wrote in a joint statement.

Viktor Orban accused his Western allies on Friday of wanting to drag Hungary into an armed conflict, as it had been during the First and Second World Wars, going so far as to compare them to Adolf Hitler.

“I have re-examined” in light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine “the documents relating to the negotiations between Hitler” and Hungarian leader Miklos Horthy, declared the nationalist Prime Minister on the radio. “Hungary was then under “enormous pressure to send more soldiers to the front as quickly as possible and deport more Jews” to the death camps, he added. “I am not saying that what we are currently experiencing has reached the same level but we are heading in the direction,” said Viktor Orban, the only leader of a member state of the European Union to have maintained close bilateral relations with the Russia despite the war.

On Friday, he also condemned the decision of several Western chancelleries, according to him, under pressure from NATO to authorize kyiv to use the weapons supplied against targets in Russia.

The Kremlin said on Friday that American weapons were already being used by Ukraine to target Russian soil, the day after the American green light on the use of Western weapons by kyiv against targets in Russia, under certain conditions.

“We know (…) that American-made weapons are already being used to try to strike Russian territory,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters. “This testifies quite eloquently to the degree of involvement of the United States in this conflict” in Ukraine, he added.

The Russian Defense Ministry announced on Friday that it had exchanged 75 prisoners of war from each side with Ukraine, one of the last areas where the two countries have cooperated since the start of the conflict in February 2022.

“Following a negotiation process, 75 Russian soldiers who found themselves in danger of death in captivity were repatriated from territory controlled by the Kiev regime. In exchange, 75 prisoners of war from the Ukrainian army were handed over,” the ministry said in a statement.

Ukraine estimated Friday that the American green light on the use of Western weapons against targets in Russia, under certain conditions, will “significantly strengthen” its defense against Russian assaults, particularly in the Kharkiv region where the army of Moscow launched an offensive in early May.

“This will significantly strengthen our ability to counter Russian attempts to mass on both sides of the border,” welcomed Serguiï Nykyforov, the spokesperson for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, to a small group of media, including AFP .

Like France or the United States, Germany authorizes Ukraine to use German weapons against military targets in Russia to defend itself against attacks launched by Moscow, particularly in the Kharkiv region, the spokesperson for the Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

“Ukraine has the right, guaranteed by international law, to defend itself against these attacks. To do this, it can also use the weapons provided for this purpose,” “including those that we have delivered,” Steffen Hebestreit said in a statement.

Chinese Defense Minister Dong Jun assured his American counterpart Lloyd Austin on Friday that Beijing was not supplying weapons to any party in the conflict in Ukraine, a Chinese spokesperson said on the sidelines of a meeting in Singapore.

“We have respected our commitment not to supply weapons to any of the parties to the conflict,” said this Source, assuring that Beijing had “applied strict controls on exports of military articles”. The meeting between the two ministers is the first since 2022.

Russian Defense Minister Andrei Beloussov said on Friday that his soldiers had conquered “880 km2” since the start of the year in Ukraine, where his army regularly claims advances without nevertheless achieving a real breakthrough at this stage.

“Progress is being made in all tactical directions,” assured the minister. The Ukrainian army, lacking ammunition and men, has been struggling for several months, with Russia having launched a new offensive at the beginning of May on the outskirts of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city.

China said on Friday that it would be “difficult”, under current conditions, to participate in the Ukraine Peace Summit scheduled for June in Switzerland.

“There is an obvious mismatch between the arrangements made for the conference on the one hand and China’s demands and the general expectations of the international community on the other, which makes it difficult for China to participate,” Mao said. Ning, spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The NATO Secretary General dismissed Russian threats of escalation on Friday in Prague after the American decision to authorize Ukraine to strike Russia with its weapons.

“There is nothing new (…) This is part of President (Russian Vladimir) Putin’s efforts to prevent NATO allies from supporting Ukraine,” declared Jens Stoltenberg, before the start of a NATO meeting in Prague.