The Hungarian government’s rhetoric on Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine and its articulation of a Hungarian security identity

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ABSTRACT The article examines the Hungarian government’s rhetoric on Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine during the early months of the invasion, drawing on the literature on state security identity. It finds that the Hungarian government portrayed the war as an impersonal force, a kind of maelstrom on its doorstep into which Hungary might “drift” if heedless policy proposals by Western states and the Hungarian political opposition were put into practice. According to this rhetoric, it was the Hungarian government’s judicious and patriotic leadership that enabled the country to steer clear of drifting into the war. In contrast with the pro-Western rhetoric of Hungarian governments of the 1990s and 2000s, Hungary was now explicitly identified as a “Central European” state with its own security interests, but one that was threatened by the self-interested and reckless actions of Western states and the Hungarian political opposition.