BUDAPEST, Hungary — President Joe Biden is “playing with fire” by letting Ukraine use U.S.-provided weapons to strike targets inside Russia, a top Hungarian foreign policy expert told Breitbart News in a recent interview.
“It’s clearly an escalation,” said Zoltán Koskovics, geopolitical analyst at the Center for Fundamental Rights.
Biden on Thursday pushed back against concerns he was getting the U.S. directly involved in the Ukraine War with the decision, arguing he only authorized that the weapons be used close to the Ukraine-Russia border where Russian forces are striking into Ukraine.
“We’re not talking about giving them weapons to strike Moscow, to strike the Kremlin, to strike against — just across the border, where they’re receiving significant fire from conventional weapons used by the Russians to go into Ukraine to kill Ukrainians,” Biden said in an interview with ABC News’ David Muir.
But Koskovics said despite this restriction, “It is playing with fire.”
“I fear that the Russians tend to escalate suddenly. Such a sudden escalation was in 2014, when they occupied Crimea, such as a sudden escalation it was when they launched the full-scale war in 2022. I fear very much what the next sudden Russian escalation might be. Every step that is escalatory in this war is a step in the wrong direction,” he said.
Koskovics argued that Biden needed to de-escalate in Ukraine, unless he wants American boots on the ground.
“I believe Joe Biden, when he says that he doesn’t want American boots on the ground, he doesn’t want the American soldiers to die in Ukraine. But if that is his aim, then he has to understand that there is nowhere to escalate anymore. Simply put, the Ukrainian military will not be able to conduct successful offensive operations with the current troop levels, and with their mobilization base, which means that if he refuses to involve American troops in this deadly war, then he has to look for a way to deescalate,” he said.
Koskovics acknowledged his call for de-escalation in Ukraine was unpopular among the mainstream, liberal media, and even among some of his conservative colleagues. But, he said, based on Ukraine’s own military strength, victory would be impossible without involving Western troops — which he said “should be a red line for every one of us.”
He said even if American F-16s arrive in Ukraine, it is a 51-year-old platform that cannot overcome Russian anti-air weapons.
“The F-16s did not fly into the airspace of Syria. There is a reason for that. Modern anti-air weapons are quite formidable,” he said. “There are still possible applications for the F-16 in this war, [but] I don’t think that they can become a game changer. What’s next? They need to deescalate.”
Ernő Schaller-Baross, a member of the ruling party Fidesz and ministerial commissioner in the Prime Minister’s Office, said he was worried about a third world war.
“I’m very afraid that we are moving towards [the] Third World War,” Schaller-Baross told Breitbart News in a recent interview.
“First, they told us they are only sending helmets. Then they told us they are sending small weapons and grenades. Then, they told us they are sending tanks. Then they did send the F-16. And now they are deciding that Ukrainians can use these weapons to fight toward Russia. We are talking here about the nuclear power. We have to stop this lunacy,” he said.
“We have to stop it. For two years, the front is not moving, and people are dying,” he said.
Koskovics said conservatives in Hungary, who comprise the majority in its government, are hoping that the American people elect Donald Trump, who has said he would seek to end the war within 24 hours of becoming president.
“He has made it clear that one of his top priorities will be to end this war as soon as possible. That is because he understands that this war no longer serves America’s interests,” Koskovics said.
“If there was a time when this war was degrading the Russian military, we are past that. They reached the minimum and they’ve started to build back. Their soldiers are learning to fight. War is the best drill sergeant,” he said.
He argued:
Their technology is improving rapidly. If you think about the loitering munition called ‘Lancet’, the improvement that it has shown over the last 16 months, or the new Russian guided bombs. They’ve turned very dumb, very cheap Soviet style bombs into precision munitions, at the cost of what we estimate to be roughly 15 to $20,000. And they have hundreds of thousands of those. The Russian military is not back where it was before February 2022, but it is on an improving path. So if your aim was to degrade the Russian military, well, they are no longer declining. So the next step, the next logical step is freezing the conflict, starting negotiations.
He said the U.S. defense industry is still not producing enough 155-millimeter artillery shells that would be needed to counter Russia.
“The American defense industry currently produces 40,000 of these per month. There are plans to increase production to 100,000 by 2028, four years from now. Now, the number of these shells that the Ukrainians would use to maintain successful, efficient offensive operations would be 15,000 per day in the circumstances. Negotiate,” he said.
Schaller-Baross said he is hoping that “peace-friendly conservatives” win a majority in the European Parliamentary elections on Sunday, in order to create more pressure for a ceasefire.
“We need more politicians in the European Parliament in the European Commission who are standing up for peace,” said Schaller-Baross, who is a current member of the European Parliament.
Then, he said, the next step is “an election outcome in the United States of America in November with the president who stands up for peace.”
Asked which U.S. presidential candidate he thought would be better for peace, Schaller-Baross responded, “The message is very clear. Donald Trump and President Trump always told that, in the first months of his presidency, he will push for peace in the east and that’s the most important thing.”
He pushed back against the idea that supporting a ceasefire was a pro-Russia stance.
“It’s very clear, the aggression came from Russia. According to international law, Russia is the aggressor in that war. But the only solution for the war is peace, to have an immediate ceasefire in Eastern Europe,” he said.
“People are dying day by day on the front. Since two years, there’s a stalemate on the front, in the east. They are simply not moving. Nobody’s winning this bloody war. People, young people, young folks are dying. The only normal Christian stance on that question is that we need peace immediately,” he said.
“They told us in Brussels, ‘After the first sanction packet, after second sanction packet, the third sanction packet’ — now I think we already had 14 different sanction packages — ‘that the war will end.’ It’s not ending, so we need to push for ceasefire — that the only normal reaction, the only European Christian reaction to the whole situation. We need peace in Ukraine,” he said.
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