Hungarian PM Orban Visits Former US President Trump at His Florida Estate
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban held a meeting with former US President Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida Friday. According to Bertalan Havasi, spokesman for the head of government, they spoke for an hour.
They were accompanied by their closest staff members, the spokesman said. Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó, among others, also accompanied the Prime Minister to Florida.
? A true gentleman, the Hungarian Prime Minister presented a bouquet of flowers to Melania Trump.
— Sputnik (@SputnikInt) March 9, 2024
Trump expressed great appreciation to the Hungarian Prime Minister. “There’s nobody that’s better, smarter or a better leader than Viktor Orban. He’s fantastic…He’s a… pic.twitter.com/aD922LlufP
“After the meeting, the program continued with a joint dinner and concert,” Havasi was quoted as saying by the MTI news agency.
Donald and Melania Trump together greeted Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban at a Mar-A-Lago dinner reception. pic.twitter.com/XHHDGy3ER7
— Sputnik (@SputnikInt) March 9, 2024
The spokesman did not disclose which topics Orban and Trump discussed, but before the trip to the US Hungarian officials said they would discuss the situation in Ukraine and the relations between the US and Hungary.
Donald Trump with Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán at Mar-a-Lago tonight.
— ALX ?? (@alx) March 9, 2024
Orbán is not planning to meet with Joe Biden on his visit to the United States. pic.twitter.com/cMDkSdH6Dp
The Hungarian government has made no secret of its desire for Trump to win the November election and return to the White House. It associates with the former US president hopes for the resolution of the Ukrainian conflict and the improvement of bilateral relations.
President Trump ? Prime Minister Orbán pic.twitter.com/RPnDgd1HyR
— Team Trump (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@TeamTrump) March 9, 2024
During this trip to the United States Orban visited Washington, D.C. on March 7, where he delivered a speech at conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation. A meeting with US President Joe Biden was not on his program; Orban came to the US not at Biden’s invitation but to meet his political opponent and likely rival in the November elections once again. Experts consider the situation almost unprecedented for a NATO ally.
This was Orban’s third meeting with Trump, who once hosted the Hungarian prime minister at the White House. The Hungarian PM has never met Biden in person since he took office in January 2021, and relations between the two are considered strained. The Biden Administration disapproves of the Hungarian government’s stance on some international issues, including the Ukraine crisis. Orban, in turn, chose to discuss politics with Biden’s harshest critic and political opponent.
Nearly 50 Drones Intercepted Over Russia – MOD
The Russian military intercepted 47 Ukrainian fixed-wing drones overnight, the Defense Ministry said on Saturday morning. No fatalities were caused, according to local officials.
The ministry said one UAV was shot down over Belgorod Region, two over Kursk Region, three over Volgograd Region, and 41 over Rostov Region.
Vassily Golubev, governor of Rostov Region, wrote on Telegram that local air defense units had repelled a large-scale assault. Several UAVs were destroyed while approaching the city of Morozovsk. He added that there were no deaths resulting from a bombardment of the city of Taganrog, according to preliminary reports. One Emergencies Ministry employee who was clearing debris on the ground was injured and hospitalized, but his life is not in danger.
The governor of Kursk Region, Roman Starovoyt, used social media to report that debris from a downed Ukrainian drone had damaged the roof of a hospital in the main city of the province, Kursk. No casualties were reported. Starovoyt said that due to an explosion risk, patients from the intensive care unit of a neighboring building were evacuated to other medical institutions in the city.
Voronezh Region Governor Aleksander Gusev has also confirmed that three UAVs were destroyed over his region, with no casualties reported so far. He said the threat of further attacks remains.
All of the regions, except for Volgograd, border Ukraine and have regularly been targeted by Kiev’s forces.
On Thursday the Defense Ministry reported that the Russian military had thwarted an attack by six Ukrainian fixed-wing drones, including in the Tula Region. It is located deeper inside Russia, some 200km from the Ukrainian border and adjacent to Moscow Region, which surrounds the Russian capital.
On Wednesday, a Ukrainian drone hit a fuel depot in Kursk Region some 100km from the border, causing a fire, the governor reported. Another crashed into a fuel and lubricant storage facility used by an ore refinery.
‘We Got To Reign Her In’: Behind The Scenes Of Nuland’s Early Retirement
Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern in a new interview has speculated over the reasons behind Victoria Nuland stepping down from her high-ranking position as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, the number three top official in the State Department.
Her retirement was announced by her boss Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday. But the question is why now when the administration is attempting to stay the course and present a strong continued stance on Ukraine, also as Biden is still seeking to get tens of billions in defense aid through Republicans in the House.
While there have been rumors that maybe she could be in poor or declining health, McGovern has told Russia’s Sputnik that the notoriously hawkish Nuland was a liability at a moment NATO and Russia are inching closer to direct nuclear-armed confrontation.
“My best guess here is that the CIA and the Defense Department and the NSA got this message around saying, ‘look, Victoria’s got her own agenda here,’” said McGovern.
The former CIA official continued to speculate: “‘The president doesn’t really want to strike these ammo depots in Russia or knock down the [Crimean] Bridge. So we got to rein her in, I guess it’s time for her to go to early retirement.’”
Another theory, though not necessarily contradictory to the above, has been advanced by professor of national security at Bowie State University Dr. Matthew Crosston.
He laid out what “a staunch anti-Putinist Nuland was and how fervently she wanted to continue to utilize Ukraine as a platform in which to continue to weaken and/or slight Russia on the global stage — and perhaps even up the ante in that conflict with her support of sending ballistic missiles into Ukraine.” But she also knows the Ukrainian side is losing.
She may have seen the writing on the wall as Ukraine forces are in retreat, and wanted to bail before potential total defeat:
“She undoubtedly understood that if American support lessons or wanes, Ukraine loses, period,” Crosston pointed out. “Perhaps she did not want to be in the Administration that would be responsible for that outcome.”
But both McGovern and Crosston would agree that with Nuland as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs (in this capacity she basically ran all of US foreign policy in Europe), ceasefire talks between Kiev and Moscow remained an extremely distant prospect or even an impossibility.
“One thing is certain: as long as Nuland remained in that chair, there was literally no chance such talk could even be theorized. Now it can,” Crosston concluded.
Journalist Glenn Greenwald also weighed in on Nuland stepping down in an interview with The Hill. Greenwald describes the “singular monstrousness of Victoria Nuland and her bipartisan, blood-stained, ghoulish career“…
Nuland’s temporary replacement for under secretary upon her retirement has been announced as career diplomat John Bass, a former ambassador to Afghanistan. He is currently in the position of the undersecretary of state for management. He oversaw Biden’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, and so it is somewhat ironic that he’ll also oversee Ukraine policy at this critical juncture where Kiev is clearly against the ropes.
Biden Tries to Blame Republicans for Coming Loss of Ukraine — Ex-State Dept Official
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) – President Joe Biden used his State of the Union speech to blame the Republicans if Russia wins the war in Ukraine by claiming Kiev could have won or survived if the latest $61 billion arms package had not been blocked in Congress, former State Department official and consultant on US-Russia relations James Carden said.
“The way I heard the speech was Biden setting the ground to blame the Republicans for losing the war should they block further tranches of funding,” Carden told Sputnik.
But Biden was still committed to his confrontational and warmaking policies in Ukraine, the Middle East and elsewhere around the world and showed no sign of wanting to change them, he emphasized.
“I think he’s a true believer and actually believes that his status as Warlord-in-Chief helps him politically,” Carden explained.
Biden’s indirect admission that the planned next enormous military aid package for President Volodymyr Zelensky’s increasingly discredited regime in Kiev was blocked on Capitol Hill did not stem from any fundamental reassessment of US policy on backing Ukraine’s war against Russia, he said.
Instead, Biden’s comments reflected his always primary concern with domestic politics and his obsession with getting reelected to a second term in November even though he is already 81 years old, Carden clarified.
“The results coming out of Michigan, however, disprove his thesis,” Carden said.
Uncommitted voters in the US state of Michigan on Super Tuesday this week registered a protest against Biden and his policies, especially on foreign affairs, security and the invasion of Gaza. Some 100,000 voters, or 20% of those who participated in the Democratic primary alone, cast their ballots as “Uncommitted,” expressing a massive lack of support for the president in his own party with no other serious candidate to choose from.
The $61 billion package is being blocked by Republicans in the House of Representatives until Biden changes his policies on illegal immigration and agrees to crack down on it. But because the president is determined not to change course on that, he will not get more aid approved for Kiev, his opponents have said.
Cartels Are Now In Control Of Both Sides Of The Mexican Border
BorderHawk brings you a powerful report from the border exposing the cartels’ sophisticated operational control of the border as human and drug trafficking continues unabated in thanks to Biden’s open-border and soft-on-crime policies.
Sweden Officially Joins NATO
Sweden has officially become the 32nd member of the US-led NATO military bloc after the document formalizing Stockholm’s accession entered into force on Thursday.
The accession ceremony will be held in Washington, where Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson will submit his country’s documents to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
A document published by the US Department of State asserts that all conditions for Sweden’s entry into NATO have been fulfilled and that the protocol signifying Stockholm’s membership entered into force on March 7, 2024.
In a post on X, Kristersson also declared that NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg had informed him that all bloc members have formally accepted Sweden’s accession protocol and had invited Stockholm to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Stockholm is set to make a final formal decision on joining the bloc, which will be followed by a news conference. After that, Kristersson is set to issue an address to the nation, according to Swedish Radio.
Sweden and Finland abandoned their longstanding policies of non-alignment and submitted bids to join the US-led military bloc in 2022, citing security concerns following the launch of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine.
The two countries’ bids to join had to be ratified by all current bloc members. Hungary and Türkiye initially objected, with Ankara accusing Sweden and Finland of harboring members of armed groups designated as terrorists under Turkish law.
Finland and Sweden eventually reformed their anti-terrorism laws and both bids were ultimately ratified. Finland became the 31st member of NATO in April 2023.
Meanwhile, Russia has insisted that NATO’s continued expansion poses a threat to its national security and is destabilizing Europe, making it less safe. Moscow has pointed out that it did not have any issues with the two Scandinavian countries before they decided to join the US-led bloc, but will now be forced to respond by reorganizing and strengthening its armed forces in the region.