“We Hungarians are the only ones to have shed blood in that war, while those criticising us have not,” PM Viktor Orbán said yesterday in the 31st Bálványos summer university in Central Romania. “Therefore Hungary has the right, as a neighbouring country, to say that peace is the only solution. Peace is the only solution to save lives and the only antidote to wartime inflation and the economic crisis triggered by the war.” Orbán highlighted that Hungarians were the only ones besides the Ukrainians who had “shed blood” in the war, citing official data indicating that 86 Hungarians have died in the conflict so far. Because of this, he added, Hungary had a right to say as a neighbouring country that peace was the only solution. […]

Hungary is a member of NATO and acts under the assumption “that Russia will never attack the much stronger alliance”, he said. Orban added, however, that Russia had found itself in a “delicate situation” after the EU had decided to impose severe economic sanctions on it and send weapons to Ukraine. “So, although not in a legal sense, but they are practically part of this conflict, which poses a huge risk,” he said. Orbán said Russia had made it clear that it wanted it guaranteed that Ukraine would never join NATO, insisting that the war would not have broken out “if Donald Trump were the US president and Angela Merkel the German chancellor. Läs artikel

Lettland har inlett en diskussion med Sverige om samarbete inom Nato, bland annat om att få svenska soldater till Lettland.

”Jag tror att det vore i Sveriges intresse också”, säger Lettlands försvarsminister Artis Pabriks till Ekot.

Sveriges överbefälhavare Micael Bydén har tidigare sagt till Dagens Nyheter att svenska soldater i Baltikum vore ”rätt naturligt” när Sverige går med i Nato. Läs artikel

Just got back from seeing the new Top Gun movie. I must be one of the last Americans in the world to have seen this movie, which has been out for a while, and is a big hit. It was about what I expected: a movie about Tom Cruise, men, and technology. Despite some truly fantastic flight and air combat scenes, the movie landed with a thud, at least with me. On the walk back home, I tried to figure out why.

The first Top Gun film came out in 1986, when the US was in full flush of the Reagan-era patriotic revival. We were still in the Cold War, but Gorbachev had arrived on the scene, and it looked like we might win. It is hard to overstate the sense of confidence that America had then — a confidence that was most vividly expressed through hallowing the military. This had a lot to do with exorcising the demons of our Vietnam failure, and the Iran debacle. Tom Cruise was 24 years old in 1986; he was the face of America’s brash new sense of itself.

Tom Cruise is 60 today. True, he looks damn good for 60, but he is still puffy and soft around the edges, and doesn’t have the swagger he used to have. And you know, he looks like America today, too. This, I think, accounts for why the new Top Gun is so tinny. It’s harder to relate to, given the wars and other events of the past twenty years. Maybe it’s just me, but sitting in the movie theater tonight watching the film, I enjoyed it on a surface level, but I’m no longer the audience for this shiny, shallow war movie. Läs recensionen

Ryssland bekräftar att landet låg bakom lördagens attack mot hamnen i staden Odessa i södra Ukraina på lördagen. Moskva hävdar att målet varit ”militär infrastruktur”.

”Kalibr-robotar förstörde militär infrastruktur i Odessas hamn, genom ett precisionsangrepp”, uppger Maria Zacharova, talesperson för det ryska utrikesdepartementet. Närmare bestämt slogs en ukrainsk patrullbåt ut i angreppet, enligt Zacharova.

Attacken skedde dagen efter det att Moskva och Kiev nådde ett avtal som ska möjliggöra export av miljontals ton spannmål som blockerats av kriget. Hamnen i Odessa spelar en stor roll för exporten över Svarta havet.

Enligt fredagens avtal förbinder sig Ryssland att inte angripa hamnar medan spannmål transporteras. Ukraina uppger att spannmål funnits i förvar i hamnen vid tidpunkten för attacken, som dock inte tycks ha träffat något livsmedelslager.

Moskva gav ingen officiell kommentar av attacken under lördagen. Men Turkiet, som tillsammans med FN hjälpte till att medla fram överenskommelsen om spannmålet, uppgav att Ryssland försäkrat att man inte legat bakom angreppet. Läs artikel

The European Union needs a new strategy on the war in Ukraine as punitive sanctions against Moscow have not worked, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said. “A new strategy is needed which should focus peace talks and drafting a good peace proposal … instead of winning the war,” Orban said in a speech in Romania on Saturday.

Orban, reelected for a fourth consecutive term in April, reiterated that Hungary – a NATO member – would stay out of the war in neighbouring Ukraine. He is facing his toughest challenge since taking power in 2010, with inflation in double digits, a weak forint currency and EU funds still held up amid a dispute with Brussels about democratic standards.

Orban has said before that Hungary is unwilling to support EU embargoes or limitations on Russian gas imports as that would undermine its economy, which relies heavily on Russian gas imports.[…]

He said Ukraine will never win the war this way “quite simply because the Russian army has assymetrical dominance”. Orban called for Russia and the United States to hold negotiations to bring about an end to the war. He said “only Russian-US talks can put an end to the conflict because Russia wants security guarantees” only Washington can give. Läs artikel

Hamnen i Odessa har skadats av explosioner. Ukrainas militär uppger att två ryska raketer slagit ner i staden. Omvärlden fördömer angreppet. ”Visar Rysslands förakt för internationell rätt”, twittrar Sveriges utrikesminister Ann Linde.

Türkiye said it was ”concerned” by Russian strikes on the Ukrainian port of Odessa on July 22, a day after Moscow and Kyiv penned a deal sponsored by Ankara and the U.N. to resume grain exports.

”The fact that an incident like this happened after the agreement we made yesterday… really makes us concerned,” Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said.

’Russia denies any attack on Odessa,’ the minister added.

Russian missiles struck Ukraine’s key Black Sea port of Odessa on July 23, Ukrainian officials said.

Two cruise missiles hit terminal infrastructure, regional authorities said on social media, casting a shadow over the landmark agreement hammered out over months of negotiations aimed at relieving a global food crisis caused by stalled deliveries that sent wheat prices tumbling. Läs artikel

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres Saturday ”unequivocally” condemned missile attacks earlier in the day on Ukraine’s Odessa, a port that is key to a UN-brokered grain export deal between Russia and Ukraine.

”The Secretary-General unequivocally condemns reported strikes today in the Ukrainian port of Odesa,” his deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said in a statement, adding that: ”Full implementation (of the deal) by the Russian Federation, Ukraine and Turkey is imperative.” Läs artikel

Türkiye’s Foreign Ministry summoned Sweden’s interim charge d’affaires in Ankara over PKK/PYD/YPG terror propaganda held on July 21 in the Swedish city of Gothenburg, diplomatic sources said Saturday.

According to ministry sources, Türkiye’s strong reaction was conveyed also through initiatives before the Swedish authorities in Stockholm. Türkiye reiterated expectations that the perpetrators of the action would be identified, necessary legal and judicial measures and concrete steps should be taken in light of the commitments recorded in the trilateral memorandum signed among Finland, Sweden, and Türkiye last month at NATO’s Madrid summit.

Supporters of the PKK/YPG/PYD terror group on July 21 held a demonstration carrying propaganda banners of the terrorist organization. Läs artikel

A group of European Union countries mainly from the south has already shot down Brussels’ bid to grant itself the power to ration gas around the bloc less than 24 hours after the debut of the proposal Wednesday.

The emergency measure — widely perceived as being designed to save Berlin should its gas link to Russia, the Nord Stream pipeline, stop operating — would allow the EU executive to impose a mandatory 15 percent cut in gas consumption from August to May. Such action could be ”triggered at any moment,” should scarce supplies make sharing necessary among EU neighbors.

But ministers in Poland, Portugal, Spain, Cyprus and Greece have already emphatically said ”no” to the proposed power grab and binding gas consumption reductions, while three EU diplomats confirmed there are currently not enough votes to pass the new rules. Approval requires a qualified majority — 15 countries representing 65 percent of the bloc’s population. Individual vetoes are not allowed under the controversial emergency procedure.

Hungary has taken a step further, announcing it has no intention of letting any gas leave its borders beginning next month. Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó actually boarded a flight to Moscow on Thursday in a bid to buy more Russian supplies while it’s still possible. Läs artikel