Russian-Ukrainian War (2022- )

[Full Metal Junkie]

Honestly, he is scared. Tisza is gaining momentum and there is a good chance he will win a majority. Fingers crossed it is a supermajority

The way Orban screwed the electoral system during his time in power, you never know. With all the gerrymandering, voter tourism, and unfair media coverage, he's rigged the system.
Good backgrounder on the topic:

Hungary’s unfair election: Why Viktor Orbán is so hard to beat

The prime minister’s rivals say his total control over the state and the media allows him to influence elections in his favor.

www.politico.eu

 

[DSCToronto]

I am sure Ukrainians are celebrating!!

Concession: Veteran Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has conceded defeat in a parliamentary election and congratulated Péter Magyar, leader of the opposition party Tisza and a former member of the ruling Fidesz.

• Global impact: The election was watched around the world. Magyar’s victory will come as a relief to many in Europe, where Orbán had been a massive thorn in the side of the EU but will be a blow for US President Donald Trump, who boosted the nationalist, pro-Russian leader during the campaign.

• Record turnout: Sunday’s election had the highest turnout in Hungary’s post-Communist history, officials said shortly before the polls closed, with almost 78% of eligible voters having cast their ballots.

 

[Richard White]

I am sure Ukrainians are celebrating!!

Concession: Veteran Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has conceded defeat in a parliamentary election and congratulated Péter Magyar, leader of the opposition party Tisza and a former member of the ruling Fidesz.

• Global impact: The election was watched around the world. Magyar’s victory will come as a relief to many in Europe, where Orbán had been a massive thorn in the side of the EU but will be a blow for US President Donald Trump, who boosted the nationalist, pro-Russian leader during the campaign.

• Record turnout: Sunday’s election had the highest turnout in Hungary’s post-Communist history, officials said shortly before the polls closed, with almost 78% of eligible voters having cast their ballots.

There's legitimate concern at the moment that some of the unscrupulous members of Fidesz may flee the country.

Some Fidesz cabinet ministers were potentially involved in some activites with foreign nations. There's some concern they may flee to Russia

 

[Full Metal Junkie]

I am sure Ukrainians are celebrating!!

Concession: Veteran Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has conceded defeat in a parliamentary election and congratulated Péter Magyar, leader of the opposition party Tisza and a former member of the ruling Fidesz.

• Global impact: The election was watched around the world. Magyar’s victory will come as a relief to many in Europe, where Orbán had been a massive thorn in the side of the EU but will be a blow for US President Donald Trump, who boosted the nationalist, pro-Russian leader during the campaign.

• Record turnout: Sunday’s election had the highest turnout in Hungary’s post-Communist history, officials said shortly before the polls closed, with almost 78% of eligible voters having cast their ballots.

Some good news from Hungary for once. With ~80% reporting, Tisza is projected to win constitutional supermajority. This is required for them to pass any laws overturning anything from the Orban era.

As far as Ukraine goes, this is positive news, but not overly positive. While Magyar government most likely will run less interference with EU support of Ukraine, Magyar is far from being pro-Ukraine. Years of demonizing Zelensky by the Orban-controlled Hungarian media have left the country with a deep anti-Ukraine sentiment that Magyar will not go against.

 

[nightstreak]

Some good news from Hungary for once. With ~80% reporting, Tisza is projected to win constitutional supermajority. This is required for them to pass any laws overturning anything from the Orban era.

As far as Ukraine goes, this is positive news, but not overly positive. While Magyar government most likely will run less interference with EU support of Ukraine, Magyar is far from being pro-Ukraine. Years of demonizing Zelensky by the Orban-controlled Hungarian media have left the country with a deep anti-Ukraine sentiment that Magyar will not go against.

Ukraine doesn't need Hungary's support, just needs it to not interfere in European powers' efforts to give Ukraine the tools to defend itself. Not having a Kremlin puppet in the EU is a good start.

 

[Towered]

One less pesky obstacle for Ukraine. Now Slovakia is alone.

 

[nightstreak]

One less pesky obstacle for Ukraine. Now Slovakia is alone.

Slovakia is less equipped to go through what Hungary just went through. I don't think Fico is interested in ending up like Orbán, particularly because Slovakia hasn't had 16 years to modify the system and there's an election a year and a half away that could topple him. Unlike Ukraine, Slovakia is a Euro member and can't as easily manipulate its economy to survive EU sanctions. I expect Fico to say what he wants to say for his domestic audience but behave in a way that doesn't turn the EU against his country which would be disastrous for him back home.

 

[Full Metal Junkie]

One less pesky obstacle for Ukraine. Now Slovakia is alone.

My understanding is that following the election Magyar has made the following comments in relation to Ukraine and Russia:
1. He's not going to be blocking the €90B financial aid to Ukraine that was blocked by Orban
2. He does intend to block Ukraine's accelerated acceptance into EU just like Orban.
3. He intends to keep buying Russian oil and gas. He opposes EUs plan for complete ban on Russian energy. He expects EU to resume buying Russian oil and gas as soon as the war is over.

I mean, I'll take him over Orban, but still... Yikes....

For his part, Zelensky just said that Ukraine will repair the Druzhba oil pipeline to Hungary and they should see Russian oil deliveries resume by the end of April.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

In somewhat related news: Russians have partially repaired their oil offloading docks in Ust-Luga port with satellite imagery showing that 2 out of 3 docks were operating as of yesterday. If Ukraine is willing to repair a Russian pipeline on Ukrainian soil, I doubt they will be striking Russian oil ports in the near future either. There is immense backroom pressure on them to stop interfering with Russian oil exports because of the whole Straight of Hormuz debacle. They must be caving into this pressure.

 

[nightstreak]

My understanding is that following the election Magyar has made the following comments in relation to Ukraine and Russia:
1. He's not going to be blocking the €90B financial aid to Ukraine that was blocked by Orban
2. He does intend to block Ukraine's accelerated acceptance into EU just like Orban.
3. He intends to keep buying Russian oil and gas. He opposes EUs plan for complete ban on Russian energy. He expects EU to resume buying Russian oil and gas as soon as the war is over.

I mean, I'll take him over Orban, but still... Yikes....

For his part, Zelensky just said that Ukraine will repair the Druzhba oil pipeline to Hungary and they should see Russian oil deliveries resume by the end of April.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

In somewhat related news: Russians have partially repaired their oil offloading docks in Ust-Luga port with satellite imagery showing that 2 out of 3 docks were operating as of yesterday. If Ukraine is willing to repair a Russian pipeline on Ukrainian soil, I doubt they will be striking Russian oil ports in the near future either. There is immense backroom pressure on them to stop interfering with Russian oil exports because of the whole Straight of Hormuz debacle. They must be caving into this pressure.

As long as Trump is in the White House, we might as well have Putin sitting at the Resolute Desk. Missiles won’t destroy the Russian oil economy if you have the US putting its finger on the scale to give it an advantage.

The European Union needs to move quickly to not only transform their member states’ energy sources, they need to begin to export renewable energy technology to the world the way China is doing.

Give Magyar a minute to stabilize his country and reverse Orbán’s manipulation of their democratic system but the EU should begin to raise the bar on what it takes to be a EU member. Buying Russian oil should come with diminished funding and adopting renewables should be rewarded.

 

[nightstreak]

I looked it up. The €19B in frozen EU funds for Hungary are conditional on institutional changes and greening their economy, not just disassembling Orbán’s democratic roadblocks but building energy independence from Russia. €10B of that money is earmarked for grid modernization, scaling their geothermal and solar sources and distributing heat pumps to homes throughout the country.

Magyar has committed to Hungarian energy sovereignty by 2035. He is being pragmatic, not pro-Russia. I don’t think anyone could expect a country to transition from their primary source of energy instantly. It’s going to take time.

 

[Richard White]

Give Magyar a minute to stabilize his country and reverse Orbán’s manipulation of their democratic system but the EU should begin to raise the bar on what it takes to be a EU member. Buying Russian oil should come with diminished funding and adopting renewables should be rewarded.

Here's the thing.

It's less of a choice and more of a need to buy Russian oil and gas in Hungary.

The reality is, they are the closest option for them and the easiest. It's not like they can call up South America or the US and have crude delivered next day.

They cannot send tankers from the Middle East to Hungary as it is landlocked. Refining crude elsewhere would mean trucking it in through Russia from the Middle East. I doubt Russia will permit them to buy fuel from other countries and transit it through theirs.

You may be able to get it in via the mediterranian sea from Libya but that is still not the easiest.

In my honest opinion, the best option would be for Hungary to support Ukraine and continue to buy Russian Oil/Gas. That's if Russia is cool with it (which I suspect they won't be).

 

[Full Metal Junkie]

They cannot send tankers from the Middle East to Hungary as it is landlocked.

They can. There is the Adria pipeline that runs from Croatia to Hungary. Croatia is happy for Hungary to start making use of that pipeline for absolutely any oil they'd like, as long as it's not Russian. Hungary just refuses to start paying fair market prices for its oil.

Inside the feud blocking Croatia’s bid to wean Hungary off Russian oil

A pipeline across the Balkans could end Budapest’s dependence on Russian oil, but Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government is resisting.

www.politico.eu

 

[Full Metal Junkie]

I wanted to provide an update on the new trends in Russia-Ukraine war that were observed in the past few months. While it's premature to make far-reaching conclusions from these trends, they give grounds for hope and optimism.

1. The middle strike

For years now, Ukraine has been missing the middle strike capabilities. Tube artillery has its limits, rocket artillery (GMLRS rockets fired from HIMARS) has been made obsolete by the Russian electronic warfare (GPS spoofing in this particular case).

Since the beginning of this year, Ukraine has been dabbling in drone middle strikes. Prior to January, Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Force (USF) was primarily involved in stemming the tide of Russians zerg-rushing the frontlines. Staring this January, however, USF are more and more involved in disrupting logistics tens of kilometers deep into the occupied territory.

March-April was very notable for ever-increasing number of successful middle strikes on logistic hubs and Russian air defenses.

https://twitter.com/x/status/2041811816590774430

https://twitter.com/x/status/2044677063236301249

2. The deep strike

First - the bad. Ukraine's home-grown Flamingo cruise missile is still far away from being mass-fielded. It still has guidance/targeting issues that cause it to completely miss the target more often than not. And the numbers of them being fired this year can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

Second - the good. March was the first time that saw Ukraine actually outpace Russia in terms of one-way attack drone deep strikes. A really good thread on this topic by Clement Molin:

https://twitter.com/x/status/2041182310930718985

3. The attrition

Ukraine's MoD has been claiming 30K+ Russian casualties for four months straight now. In March, they claimed just over 35K irreplaceable casualties (dead and maimed beyond return to duty). This post refers to British MoD, but the numbers quoted there are word-for-word what Zelensky has claimed himself in his end of March briefing:

https://twitter.com/x/status/2044437231050350841

If these claims are true, this would mean:
a. Russia is losing soldiers faster than replacement rates for 4 straight months now.
b. Drones have almost completely displaced artillery. Less than a year ago, Ukrainian officials were touting the 30% figure. As in, drones were responsible for 30% of enemy casualties. They are up to 96% in March of 2026. Astonishing.

4. Stemming the tide

The combination of all of the above developments seems to slowly stem the tide of war. Russians were advancing at a glacial pace even before, but over that past 4 months, they have been advancing even slower. The YoY territorial gains paint a bleak picture for them:

data source

So Russia is 'buying' occupied land in Ukraine at the price of 1 dead or maimed Russian per hectare.

What's the math on the ideal ratio of dead Russians per hectare for optimal fertilization of Ukrainian soil?

Based on the slump in Russian territorial gains, I've seen that ratio quoted as 35 dead/maimed Russians per hectare for the month of March. That may be too much fertilizer at this point.

 

[Towered]

Poor Putin is stuck in an unwinnable war. This has morphed into Russia's Vietnam on steroids. Ukraine will be content to just sit back and pick off the orcs until they gradually run low enough on supply that they won't be able to effectively man the front lines. They already aren't able to advance, and eventually they won't even be able to defend what they're occupying. I've said for years now that this is the key - just keep hammering them relentlessly from a defensive posture until the situation becomes completely untenable for the aggressor.

 

[Full Metal Junkie]

Putin is stuck in an unwinnable war. This has morphed into Russia's Vietnam on steroids.

The mood of Russian milbloggers has shifted notably this year. Thinking back to the exact moment, I can say that January 11, 2026 was the psychological inflection point for them.

Why that date? It marked day 1,418 of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. And that day count is significant because it took the Red Army 1,418 days to defeat Nazi Germany from the beginning of Nazi invasion of USSR to the fall of Berlin.

There was a mass wave of posts from Russian milbloggers on Jan 11 lamenting this fact.

Now, Russian milbloggets are not your typical armchair quarterbacks and twitter warriors. Majority of them have connections in the frontline units, they travel to the occupied territories, they're involved in fundraising and delivery logistics, etc. They are embedded in the Russian war machine, they are the biggest war hawks, and their mood is a proxy for the overall morale of the Russian Armed Forces.

Since January, their morale has been getting lower and lower. They are openly calling the continuation of the war pointless. They are even starting to hint at blaming Putin himself for the failures in Ukraine (which was almost unheard of prior to 2026). They are up in arms about Russian government's efforts to block Telegram and restrict internet access at home.

One state TV propagandist even came out of the closet to publicly and openly denounce Putin. He was promptly incarcerated at a mental asylum:

Pro-Kremlin blogger turns on Putin, sent to psychiatric care

After seemingly switching sides, a pro-government blogger in Russia who criticized President Vladimir Putin has been admitted to psychiatric care in St. Petersburg. Did he go rogue?

www.dw.com

The time is finally starting to run out for Putin. Sending countless hoards of Russians to their slaughter is a sacrifice that Putin will always be willing to make. But the tides are turning and the soldiers are beginning to ask questions.