Vladimir Putin’s rule is ‘stable’ despite its rebellion Wagner and the Russian president will “definitely” still be at the helm of the country in 2024, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán estimated today.

“I don’t pay much attention to this event,” the Wagner mutiny, the Hungarian leader said in an interview with German newspapers Bild and Die Welt, as well as Politico.

“If this (mutiny) could happen, it is a clear sign of weakness. But if it was settled within 24 hours, it is a sign of strength,” Orbán wants to believe.

“We have intelligence services. They are more reliable than anything else” and “they say this is not important”, adds the nationalist leader.

“You know Putin is the president of Russia. So if someone thinks that he can fail or be replaced, he does not understand the Russian people and the structures of Russian power”, according to him.

“The structures in Russia are very stable. They rely on the army, on the secret services, on the police, so it’s a different kind of country, it’s a country committed to the military,” Orban explains, for whom, compared to Hungary, or Germany, Russia, “is a another world”.

Will Putin still be the leader of Russia in 2024? “Sure, that’s the reality,” Orban replies.

Viktor Orban, who had built close ties with Putin’s Russia before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, has refused, since the beginning of the invasion, to help Ukraine militarily, has criticized its sanctions policy against Moscow and maintains ties to Kremlin.

He also believes that “in his opinion” Putin is not a “war criminal”. “We can talk about war crimes after the war. If we want a ceasefire and then negotiations, we have to get those involved in the conflict to come to the table.”

The Hungarian prime minister also considers it “impossible” for Ukraine to win the war started by Moscow. “The problem is that the Ukrainians will run out of soldiers sooner than the Russians, and that will be the deciding factor in the end,” he argued.

“We want Ukraine to be saved,” he said, judging that “the only way” is for “the Americans to start negotiations with the Russians, reach an agreement on a security architecture and find a place for Ukraine in that security architecture.”