BUDAPEST, October 28. /TASS/. The EU’s anti-Russian sanctions have not lived up to Brussels’ expectations and these restrictions have boomeranged on the European Union, harming the continent, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban told Kossuth radio on Friday.
"The sanctions have not worked as Brussels had expected when they imposed them. We had come up with a plan to dig a pit for the Russians, and then we were the ones who fell into it, and now we have to decide what’s to be done. The EU says keep digging. That does not look sensible though," Orban explained.
Earlier, the Hungarian leader said Europe was divided into two camps: one zealously believing in these sanctions and the other calling for the continent-wide bloc to rethink its sanctions policy toward Russia. Orban said the restrictions against Russia had not been imposed democratically but that the decision was made by unelected bureaucrats and the elite in Brussels.
On February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin launched Moscow’s special military operation in Ukraine in response to a request for help from the leaders of the two Donbass republics. He said that Russia had no plans to occupy Ukrainian lands but the goal was rather to demilitarize and denazify the country. Following this, the West announced sweeping sanctions against the Russian Federation and stepped up arms deliveries to Kiev worth billions of dollars at this stage.