Though both being a member of both NATO and the EU, Hungary will pay in rubles for their petroleum purchases from Russia. This is a sign of how dependent Europe is on Russia.
Putin is causing "unfriendly" countries to buy gas using rubles to cause the demand for their currency to go up, thus returning some of the value lost by all the sanctions they have been hit with since attacking Ukraine. The countries Russia (Putin) has marked as "unfriendly" are the US, UK, and all the EU nations.
The Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orban is also considered an ally to Putin. It is reported that all the other remaining countries have refused such a request and are looking elsewhere for all their needs which before were fulfilled by the Russians. The Hungarian leader's close ties with the Chinese government and Russia has kind of always been a sore spot for the EU. The Hungarian leader is now in his fourth term and it appears the EU is very unsatisfied with how things are progressing (or maybe digressing) that they plan to cut billions of EU funding to Hungary.
With tensions rising in both China and Russia as far as the West goes, this maybe another light that is shining upon this geopolitical struggle that may lead only to a battlefield. Peace is becoming farther and farther from reach.
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