Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán remains unmoved in his opinion regarding Ukraine’s EU membership, saying in an interview that “the Europeans are not strong enough for the Russians to take us seriously”, according to POLITICO.

At the same time, Orban argues that Serbia should join the EU before Ukraine. In particular, in an interview to be published later this week, he says the EU will “lose” Serbia to China unless it lets the country join the bloc soon, and would have to do so before accepting Ukraine.

“We have to finish the old work of enlargement before starting the new enlargement with Ukraine. If we don’t integrate Serbia as soon as possible, we will lose it,” Orban said in a conversation with former Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Sussel for European Voices, a magazine published by Die Presse. He also said that Ukraine should be a neutral security point between the West and Russia.

Serbia applied to join the EU in 2009, but its candidacy was stalled amid concerns about the decline of democracy and its close ties to Russia and China.

“Serbia has other options. He just concluded a free trade agreement with China,” Orban said, referring to the agreement signed last October with Serbia’s second-largest trading partner after the EU.

Orban also dismissed Kiev’s prospects of fending off Russian invasion and joining the EU, claiming the only way for Ukraine to survive is for the country to be “a buffer zone between Russia and the West”.

“If this doesn’t work, Ukraine will continue to lose territory. Russia will destroy Ukraine again and again and again. Russia will never accept having an EU and NATO member like Ukraine on its borders,” he said, according to previews of his remarks.

Orban added that Russia does not take Europe seriously because the bloc is too weak militarily.

“We Europeans are not strong enough for the Russians to take us seriously. This is a power play. This is war,” Orban said.