The Hungarian government's state secretary announced over the weekend that the European Commission had asked them to use Putin's planned visit to Budapest as an opportunity to arrest him there. Shortly before, the German government had done the same. “With the upcoming elections, we are hearing more and more surreal statements, but it seems that this three-year war madness is causing mental health problems for some people,” said Balázs Hidvéghi, State Secretary of the Hungarian Government Office.
The European Commission should invoke the International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant issued against Putin in 2024 for war crimes in Ukraine. Of course, no one took this seriously except consumers of war propaganda and moralistic hysteria.
It was merely a bizarre pose, as neither Russia nor the US are members of this court (just imagine if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, against whom the ICC has also issued an arrest warrant, were to be arrested in Washington).
Even after its withdrawal, Hungary is still bound by the court's decision, but the ICC has no way of enforcing its decision. It justified its withdrawal by saying that although this court is an “honorable project,” it has currently become a “political organ” during several armed conflicts, interfering in ongoing military conflicts and thus hindering peace and the search for a lasting solution.
Hungary had already demonstrated this in the Netanyahu case when the ICC issued an arrest warrant for him and his then defense minister, Joav Galant. Hungary and Israel immediately mocked the court: on the same day, Orbán invited Netanyahu to Budapest, and his Israeli counterpart accepted the invitation.
Incidentally, the European Commission did not call for the arrest of the Israeli prime minister at that time, even though he is accused of genocide, which is a more serious crime under international law than the one for which Putin is to be held accountable. This is another sign that important institutions are increasingly acting in a politically selective manner and pursuing geopolitical goals.
Withdrawing from the ICC was a sensible move, with which Viktor Orbán apparently helped Trump and Putin agree to a meeting in Budapest, which will be of considerable international significance for Orbán. The Slovak prime minister attempted something similar, but did not go as far.
Peace is an opportunity for Ukraine
Arresting the Russian president during peace negotiations is like shooting an envoy who comes with a white flag to negotiate peace. You may recall that the term “white flag” was once used in connection with Ukraine by the late Pope Francis. He did not mean surrender, but negotiations and recognition of the reality on the battlefield. The Pope was simply stating what everyone could see – the continuation of the war and the inability to acknowledge reality would only mean further unnecessary sacrifices with no real hope of a turnaround on the battlefield.
Today, we know that if Ukraine and the West had listened to these words, not only would Ukraine have greater hopes of gaining more, but several hundred thousand people would still be alive.
Nevertheless, European leaders still do not miss an opportunity to support the war until Ukraine is completely destroyed.
Fear of the end of the war
But what does it say when the European Commission calls for Putin's arrest? The question of whether this is just another sign of the madness of European leaders, as the Hungarians suggest, is irrelevant (there is plenty of serious evidence of the irrationality of Brussels and some European leaders).
Even if it does not seem so, this is a rational intention. An entire political class, a multitude of influential individuals and media outlets have failed miserably on the most important issue of our time. In order to avoid admitting their mistake in Ukraine and their inevitable downfall, they must do everything in their power to prevent the war from ending or to postpone its inevitability as far into the future as possible.
At the beginning of the year, European statesmen and Brussels already succeeded in thwarting the path to peace that the American president wanted to take. When he fell out with Volodymyr Zelensky in Washington at the end of February, there was a chance that the Ukrainian leaders would accept reality under pressure and stop letting their citizens die senselessly on the battlefield.
But on his way back from Washington, Zelensky was monopolized by European leaders and—as so often before—convinced not to seek peace and to continue Ukraine's fight. And this despite the fact that it only means further senseless sacrifices and the loss of territory.
European leaders are simply afraid that the war might end. They had no regard for Ukraine before the war began, and they still have none today.
Blocked peace
Let us remember that there was already hope for an end to the war in April 2022, when negotiations between Ukraine and Russia were heading toward a promising conclusion. However, the Ukrainian delegation broke them off prematurely.
Three high-ranking representatives of the Ukrainian delegation have since confirmed that Russia's main interest at the negotiating table was Ukraine's neutrality, and have rejected rumors that these negotiations were broken off due to fears of a massacre in Bucha. They were broken off after the intervention of then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who convinced Zelensky that the war had a military solution. Putin should not be negotiated with, but fought, which Ukraine could achieve with the support of the West.
That was the biggest mistake of this war, which resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths and a shrunk Ukraine that lost further territories as the war continued. The current prospects for peace are much worse than they were then.
Today, even Zelensky can no longer accept peace, because that would confirm that his fatal decision in April 2022 led to the destruction of Ukraine and that all the sacrifices were in vain.