Orbán: Russia's attack on Ukraine is an 'operation' - not a war

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has questioned the warlike nature of the Russian attack on Ukraine and backed Russia's President Vladimir Putin with his choice of words.

"This is an operation as long as there is no declaration of war between the two countries," said the right-wing populist politician at his annual press conference in Budapest on Thursday.

This was the prime ministers response to the question as to why he had recently avoided using the term "war" in his talks with Putin.

Some people would characterize the events as a "war," he said.

"But we Hungarians don't dictate to anyone what words they should use to talk about it," Orbán emphasized. "We are glad that it is not a war," he carried on.

On the other hand, he said that Ukraine was at war. Orbán, who has long maintained good relations with Putin, met the Kremlin leader in Beijing in October.

Orbán made ambiguous comments regarding the dispute with Brussels over the frozen €21 billion ($23 billion) in EU funding for Hungary. On the one hand, he rejected the accusation that he wanted to link this issue with the EU's plans for further Ukraine aid totalling €50 billion.On the other hand, he emphasized that he was strictly against including this sum in the EU's seven-year budget.

He claimed to be afraid that nothing would be left to pay out the current blocked millions to Hungary, despite this not being true.

However, he is fundamentally in favour of financial support for Ukraine, as Budapest is also interested in Ukraine's existence as a buffer state between Hungary and Russia.