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Comment by rsynnott | Hacker News Reader

> Worryingly, European populists are espousing more assertively anti-Ukrainian views. Viktor Orban focused his unsuccessful election campaign to remain Hungarian prime minister on that theme. Meanwhile ECFR’s polling shows that voters of the far-right Freedom Party in Austria (FPÖ), the AfD in Germany, two far-right parties in Poland, and the governing and populist Progressive Bulgaria all see Ukraine as chiefly a “rival” or “adversary”.

Of course, note that Orban _lost_. I suspect that the far-right's Putin-fetishism is a marketing mistake on their part; "Russia is good, actually" may resonate with their base but is a very hard sell to anyone else.

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I think the far-right's pro Putin stuff is much more down to the Russians willingness to give them money in various forms than anything to do with their voters preferences.

> Of course, note that Orban _lost_.

...to a former member of his party Magyar, who was his colleague 2 years ago in 2024. It's amusing how some people see Magyar as some big change coming to Hungary after Orban.

I don't think anyone genuinely likes Russia, it's more about stop pretending we suddenly like Ukraine, you know you can dislike them both at same time, right?

Magyar is a big change. It's down to not being an Putin employee.

He seems not to be a Russian asset. That’s a big change.

"Russia is good, actually" is a hard sell to anyone who has been indoctrinated by a lifetime of Western Russophobia. Is I think what you meant.

The Russian public are victims of Putin just as much as the Ukranians. This is almost all on him and his party apparatus, just as it was under Stalin.

Western influence isn't necessary. Eastern Europe has experienced the Soviet Union and doesn't want to go back.

Oh yeah, the West is so russophobic that Russian elites all sent their kids there to study and bought million-dollar villas and penthouses there...

>anyone who has been indoctrinated by a lifetime of Western Russophobia

or who turns on the TV and sees which atrocity they've committed this week.

Technically true but it's also a hard sell to normal people who don't like wars of aggression, poisoning political opponents, and shooting down airliners.

The problem is that if you look at Russia's actions they are mostly rational and predictable. And by Russian standards Putin is a moderate. The Western wet dream is to "Yugoslavia" Russia. Balkanize it, load it with debt and take all of its assets. They had their man in Yeltsin, but he was such an egregious drunk that even the CIA couldn't get him reelected. In many ways, if you look at things objectively, there may not be a Russia without Putin.

(and you show me a major country where they aren't poisoning political opponents, conducting significantly less relevant wars than the one in Ukraine, and all kinds of other things)

I have no words for what I just read.

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