The European leader closest to Vladimir Putin, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán lived up to his reputation as a political chameleon and said on Saturday that he supported all sanctions against Russia over the war in Ukraine.
“Hungary has made it clear that we support all sanctions, so we will not block anything [dentro da União Europeia]. Whatever the EU prime ministers agree on, we will accept and support,” Orbán said in rare English at his country’s border with Ukraine.
Even more significantly, it agreed that Russia should be disconnected from the international payments system called Swift. With that, the EU is practically ready to execute the movement, which depends on a governmental decision of each member.
Orbán, in power for the second time since 2010, is an icon of so-called illiberalism. He coined the neologism himself, speaking of illiberal democracies and citing Putin as a great symbol of the movement, in opposition to what he calls the decadence of the West. They were together last 1st day.
Not by chance, the Hungarian is one of the few world leaders who has a good relationship with Jair Bolsonaro (PL). Last week, the Brazilian president made a highly symbolic trip: he raised “solidarity” with Putin in Moscow and then embraced Orbán as “my brother”.
The Russian visit was more controversial because of the obvious theme of the war, which Bolsonaro tried to capitalize on because at that moment Putin was showing signs that he might back off from his military pressure on Ukraine. The explosions from Thursday (24) onwards told another story, creating great embarrassment for the Brazilian, who is already an outcast in Western forums.
But it was on the way to Budapest that the Brazilian felt more comfortable, speaking ill of immigration and chanting fascist slogans with high resonance in Hungary. Now, apparently the discursive knot for Bolsonaro’s more ideological supporters will grow.
Orbán made a career as an activist against his country’s Soviet heritage, and until the 2010s he was a critic of Putin. Afterwards, they lined up, although the Hungarian always maintained ambiguity in their positions. The answer now seems to have more to do with the election he faces in April than with great empathy for Ukraine’s plight, but the result is the same.
Also this Saturday (26), another member of the Eurasian illiberal group, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, indicated positions even more opposed to Putin – with whom he has a very close relationship, including military, but also full of back-and-forth.
As Turkey is a member of NATO like Hungary, for now it is on the side of the Western military alliance. Its foreign minister has been calling for an end to Russian attacks and, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky posted on Twitter, has agreed to close transit for Russian ships in his country’s straits that link the Mediterranean to the Black Sea.
There is no clarity about what the Ukrainian speaker was referring to. On Friday, the Turks said they would allow all Russian warships based in Crimea, home of the Black Sea Fleet, to pass through. They actively participate in the war.
At the same time, Ankara said it had not allowed reinforcements, although there are doubts about the legality of that in light of the convention governing marine traffic there. After Zelensky’s post, the Turkish government said there was no decision on the matter.
But the real problem for Putin is in the Swift issue. In addition to Hungary, Cyprus also voted in favor of a boycott by the European Union. What does that mean?
The small island concentrates a market of Russian billionaires who have offshore companies there to reinvest, using the euphemism, in Russia. There are legitimate businesses too: the country’s second-largest bank is Russian. Overnight, this faucet can dry out.
Swift is the English acronym for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication Society. It is a private cooperative based in Belgium that brings together around 11,000 banks and institutions in 200 countries, and works as a kind of social network for its members.
Each has its own code, and the interconnected electronic system provides a secure connection to validate sending money back and forth. There were 42 million confirmation messages in 2021, from individuals to governments – which move approximately half of their transactions through the system.
Swift doesn’t apply sanctions, but the countries its members are in do. Thus, the EU seeks consensus to apply the sanction as a block. Russians are the second country with the most associated institutions, around 300.
In recent days, the Russian Central Bank has been saying that it can survive the veto by using its own system developed after Putin annexed Crimea in 2014. There is also the issue that many countries need the system to trade with the Russian energy sector, which is very important. for the Europe.
