{"id":11455,"date":"2025-07-03T11:01:20","date_gmt":"2025-07-03T10:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/?p=11455"},"modified":"2025-08-13T11:05:30","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T10:05:30","slug":"viktor-orban-did-not-say-that-the-eu-wants-to-launch-a-preemptive-strike-against-russia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/2025\/07\/03\/viktor-orban-did-not-say-that-the-eu-wants-to-launch-a-preemptive-strike-against-russia\/","title":{"rendered":"Viktor Orban Did Not Say that the EU Wants to Launch a Preemptive Strike Against Russia"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Original article<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(in Bosnian) was published on 2\/7\/2025; Author:\u00a0<\/em>Amar Kara\u0111uz<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

A statement by Viktor Orban from July 2025, in which he criticizes the alleged positions of the European Union in the context of the war in Ukraine, has been manipulatively presented as his speech about the EU\u2019s desire to carry out a preemptive strike against Russia.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On June 7, 2025, the Borba portal published an article<\/a> under the following headline:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Orban: The EU wants to launch a preemptive strike on Russia!<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The article contains a statement by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban at the \u201cCarpathian Basin Forum\u201d in Budapest, about relations between the European Union and the Russian Federation in the context of the war in Ukraine. In the introduction, Orban\u2019s statement is summarized about an alleged European \u201cpreemptive strike\u201d against Russia through the continuation of the war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said that EU leaders believe their goal is to fight against Russia and that they want to deliver a preemptive blow to it by continuing the conflict in Ukraine.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In the quoted statement, there is no mention of any European intention to launch a \u201cpreemptive strike\u201d against Russia. Orban spoke about the alleged war \u201cpropaganda from Brussels,\u201d according to which Russia could attack EU countries and only a preemptive strike could stop it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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At present, Brussels believes that its main task is \u201cto confront Russia in the East,\u201d the Hungarian Prime Minister said.<\/em>
\u201cAccording to the military propaganda from Brussels, Russia could attack EU countries, or even NATO, and only a preemptive strike could stop it,\u201d Orban said.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In one Facebook post<\/a> about Orban\u2019s statement, it is claimed that he commented on the \u201cdesire of EU countries for a preemptive strike\u201d against Russia, and that these countries are considering the idea of such an attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Orban commented on the desire of EU countries for a \u2018preemptive strike\u2019 against Russia<\/em>
EU countries are considering the idea of a preemptive strike against Russia to prevent a possible attack from it, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said, as reported by Magyar Nemzet.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In the continuation of the post, which had over 100 interactions at the time of writing this analysis, part of Orban\u2019s statement is also quoted, according to which \u201cEU leaders see the war in Ukraine as such a \u2018preemptive strike,\u2019 which the Union wants to continue.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are the Facts?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The claim that the Hungarian Prime Minister spoke about the \u201cEU\u2019s desire\u201d to \u201claunch\u201d a preemptive strike against Russia is manipulative. Viktor Orban made the statement at the Forum of Hungarian Legislators in the Carpathian Basin<\/a> (KMKF), held on June 5, 2025, about which the Hungarian news agency MTI<\/a> reported in detail the same day. In MTI\u2019s article, Orban\u2019s statement is quoted in which he criticizes the administration in Brussels, emphasizing that the EU \u201canticipates\u201d an attack from Russia and believes that a \u201cpreemptive blow\u201d is the only solution. However, Orban believes that this preemptive blow, in the minds of leaders in Brussels, is actually the war in Ukraine, not some new military action against Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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According to war propaganda from Brussels, Russia could attack EU member states, or even NATO, and only a preemptive blow could stop it \u2013 said the Prime Minister, adding that \u201cin their minds\u201d the war in Ukraine is actually that preemptive blow, and the Ukrainian army is already preventing the Russians from occupying Europe.<\/em>
He emphasized, however, that this is not true \u2013 Europe can be defended even without continuing the war in Ukraine.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Therefore, Orban did not say that the European Union wants or is considering launching any \u201cpreemptive strike\u201d against Russia, as claimed in the headline of Borba\u2019s article and in the analyzed Facebook post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A preemptive strike, in the theory of warfare, is undertaken when \u201cthere is an assumption or awareness that the enemy is preparing or planning an attack, and it is desired to act first to deprive them of the advantage,\u201d as explained on the website<\/a> of the Croatian Encyclopedia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Viktor Orban is known for his skepticism toward the European Union\u2019s approach to Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine. He vetoed<\/a> the European Council\u2019s decision to send additional military aid in March this year, and also blocked<\/a> a unified Council statement on the talks regarding Ukraine\u2019s accession to the EU in June this year.We rate the claim that Viktor Orban said the EU wants or is considering launching a preemptive strike against Russia as manipulation of facts<\/strong>. We also rate the headline of Borba\u2019s article as clickbait<\/strong>, as this claim does not appear in the mentioned article.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Original article\u00a0(in Bosnian) was published on 2\/7\/2025; Author:\u00a0Amar Kara\u0111uz A statement by Viktor Orban from July 2025, in which he criticizes the alleged positions of the European Union in the context of the war in Ukraine, has been manipulatively presented as his speech about the EU\u2019s desire to carry out a preemptive strike against Russia. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":11456,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[316],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fact-checks"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11455"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11457,"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11455\/revisions\/11457"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}