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      Your Tuesday Briefing: The Fallout from Bucha

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      President Biden called the atrocity a “war crime.”Good morning. We’re covering the fallout from Russian atrocities in Bucha, the end of Carrie Lam’s tenure as Hong Kong’s leader and Pakistan’s political crisis.The remnants of civilian cars on the road out of Bucha.Ivor Prickett for The New York TimesRising calls to punish RussiaPresident Biden called the indiscriminate civilian deaths in Bucha a “war crime” and said the U.S. would impose additional sanctions on Russia. Some European leaders also demanded tougher sanctions, including a total ban on Russian fuel imports. Here are the latest updates.Moscow has denied that its soldiers had anything to do with the atrocities, which have come to light as Russian forces retreat from Kyiv. The Kremlin accused the West of fabricating evidence of the killings, and Russian officials said anyone attributing them to their country’s actions could face prosecution.But a review of satellite images and videos by The Times shows that many of the civilians were killed more than three weeks ago, when Russia’s military controlled the town. There were bodies in the streets as early as March 11, well before Russia says it “withdrew completely” from the town.Bucha: A mass grave filled up in the small town north of Kyiv after the morgue, forced to operate without electricity, became intolerable. “They shot everyone they saw,” a woman said.Response: Germany, France and Lithuania are expelling Russian diplomats. The U.S. ambassador to the U.N. said that America and its allies would seek to suspend Russia from the U.N. Human Rights Council.China: The Communist Party is mounting an ideological campaign to build popular support for Russia.State of the war:Russia continued to bombard the key southern cities of Mykolaiv and Mariupol.A desperately needed Red Cross convoy was again unable to reach Mariupol. The city’s mayor said at least 130,000 people remain trapped.Other updates:Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary won re-election, and President Aleksandar Vucic of Serbia appeared to have won re-election. Both populist strongmen are friendly to Moscow.Europe wants 50 billion cubic meters of additional natural gas, but supplies are tight and that demand could cause other regions to suffer.Carrie Lam left a news conference after announcing she would step down.Vincent Yu/Associated PressCarrie Lam’s tenure will endOn Monday, Carrie Lam announced that she would not seek a second term as the leader of Hong Kong. Lam, 64, cited family reasons, but critics said the final straw was her failure to guide the city through a Covid outbreak that killed more than 8,000 people in two months.Under Lam’s watch, citywide protests deepened political divisions. A national security law silenced a once-vibrant civil society. And restrictive pandemic policies threatened Hong Kong’s status as Asia’s world city.With each crisis, Lam tried to serve the will of Beijing, which controls the territory. Critics say she oversaw a systemic backslide of personal liberties, further isolating Hong Kong from an international community leery of China’s growing authoritarian grip.Data: At one point, the city’s coronavirus fatality rate was among the highest in the world, in large part because many older people were unvaccinated.Here are the latest updates and maps of the pandemic.China deployed 2,000 military medics and 10,000 medical workers to address an outbreak in Shanghai.Australia has begun offering vulnerable groups a second booster.Despite an outbreak, Taiwan relaxed its quarantine measures.U.S. senators may cut as much as $5 billion in funding for the global vaccination effort.The hearing at Pakistan’s top court will have far-reaching implications for the nuclear power.Saiyna Bashir for The New York TimesNo ruling on no-confidencePakistan’s Supreme Court adjourned Monday after a hearing on whether lawmakers can hold a no-confidence vote regarding Prime Minister Imran Khan.On Sunday, Khan dissolved Parliament and called for new elections after he and his allies blocked the vote that was widely expected to remove him from office.The justices are expected to issue a verdict in the coming days. There are three possible outcomes:The court could order the vote of no confidence, jeopardizing Khan’s hold on power.The court could rule that Khan’s move was unconstitutional but opt not to restore the dissolved Parliament or allow the vote to move forward.The court could decline to interfere, effectively upholding Khan’s actions and paving the way for early elections.Details: Many constitutional experts believe the court will rule against Khan. But the verdict is far from certain.Maneuvering: On Monday, Khan appeared to push ahead with his plans to hold early elections: He took steps to establish an interim government and called for a protest in the capital, Islamabad.THE LATEST NEWSAsiaSri Lankans protested the dire economic conditions.Dinuka Liyanawatte/ReutersWidespread protests continued to rock Sri Lanka, posing a serious threat to the dynastic rule of the Rajapaksa family.Investigators are struggling to understand the China Eastern crash: The plane was just seven years old, the pilots were experienced and the skies were clear.The Taliban are trying to rebuild the same roads they spent years blowing up, including a critical stretch of an avalanche-prone mountain pass in Afghanistan.World NewsA boat sailed by an Iraqi port in February, where billions of cubic feet of gas go up in smoke.Hussein Faleh/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesA major U.N. climate report said that nations must move much faster to avoid a perilous future, but acknowledged some progress. Here are five takeaways.An economist who promised to shake up Costa Rica’s political system appears to have won its presidential election.As France prepares to vote for its next president, the right-wing candidate Marine Le Pen is surging in polls.What Else Is HappeningElon Musk is now Twitter’s largest shareholder.The U.S. will clear hundreds of thousands of “low-priority” asylum and deportation cases to reduce its immigration court backlog of 1.7 million.Scientists may have found an octopus that they can use as a model organism, like fruit flies or lab mice, in scientific research.A Morning ReadRaphael Vicente, general director of the Business Initiative for Racial Equality, which promotes affirmative action policies.Victor Moriyama for The New York TimesMany Brazilian companies are seeking out Black and Indigenous workers to diversify their ranks and reverse the country’s deep inequality. After activists sued LinkedIn for removing job ads that sought candidates of color, the company changed its global policy.Russia-Ukraine War: Key DevelopmentsCard 1 of 3Russian atrocities. More

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      Blinken: growing evidence of Russian atrocities in Ukraine a ‘punch to the gut’

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      Blinken: growing evidence of Russian atrocities in Ukraine a ‘punch to the gut’Secretary of state promises US will join allies in documenting atrocities and hold perpetrators accountable Growing evidence of Russian war crimes in Ukraine are “a punch to the gut”, the US secretary of state Antony Blinken said on Sunday, promising that America would join its allies in documenting the atrocities to hold the perpetrators accountable.A retreat of Russian forces around Kyiv has revealed evidence of atrocities against civilians as Ukrainian troops and journalists have moved back into a broad swathe of suburbs and towns around the capital.“We can’t become numb to this. We can’t normalize this. This is the reality of what’s going on every single day as long as Russia’s brutality against Ukraine continues,” Blinken said on CNN’s State of the Union.“You can’t help but see these images as a punch to the gut. We said before Russia’s aggression we thought it was likely that they would commit atrocities. Since the aggression we’ve come out and said we believe that Russian forces have committed war crimes, and we’ve been working to document that to provide the information that we have to relevant institutions and organizations that will put all of this together.“There needs to be accountability for it,” he added.Jens Stoltenberg, the Nato secretary general, echoed Blinken’s stance on the same program, saying the international community was sickened by the horrific images emerging from Ukraine, including the apparent execution-style killings of unarmed citizens.“It is a brutality against civilians we haven’t seen in Europe for decades and it’s horrific, and it’s absolutely unacceptable that civilians are targeted and killed,” Stoltenberg said.“It just underlines the importance that war must end, and it is [Russian president Vladimir] Putin’s responsibility to stop the war.”Asked about holding Putin and Russia’s military leaders accountable, Stoltenberg said: “It is extremely important that the international criminal court has opened an investigation into potential war crimes, that all facts are on the table, and that those responsible are held accountable. So I strongly welcome the investigation.”Blinken said it appeared Russia was withdrawing forces from the Kyiv region, but he warned its military was likely preparing to strike elsewhere in Ukraine, or even planning to return to the capital at a later date.“It’s too early to say what that actually means because they could be regrouping and restocking and replenishing, and then coming back to Kyiv. It’s also very possible that what we’re seeing is what it seems to be, a focus to the east and the south,” he said.“[But] the will of Ukrainian people is clear. They will not be subjected to a Russian occupation, whether that’s in and around Kyiv or whether that’s in the east and the south.“Here’s the problem. In the meantime, the terrible death and destruction that you started with is going to continue and that’s why it is so urgent that Russia end this war of aggression, and we do everything that we can to support the Ukrainians.”Blinken would not be drawn on the details of US military aid being sent to Ukraine, but said the aim was “to make sure they have the systems they need”.“That includes many different weapons systems,” he said. “Let me give one example, between the United States and our allies and partners, for every Russian tank, there are or soon will be, more than 10 anti-tank systems.“That’s what’s been happening. It’s been incredibly effective because of the courage and bravery of Ukrainian forces.”In a later interview on NBC’s Meet the Press, Blinken said Russia was regrouping after having “been dealt a devastating setback” by Ukraine’s resistance.“Russia had three goals going into this: to subjugate Ukraine to its will, to deny its sovereignty and its independence; to assert Russian power; and to divide the west, divide the alliance,” he said. “And on all three fronts, it’s failed. Ukraine is now more united. A sovereign, independent Ukraine is going to be there a lot longer than Vladimir Putin’s on the scene.“Russian power has actually vastly diminished, its military has greatly under-performed, its economy is reeling. And, of course, Nato, the west, are more united than in any time in recent memory.”Asked about the prospect of easing sanctions as part of peace negotiations, Blinken said the issue was in Russia’s hands.“The purpose of the sanctions is not to be there indefinitely. It’s to change Russia’s conduct. And if as a result of negotiations, the sanctions, the pressure, the support for Ukraine, we achieve just that, then at some point the sanctions will go away. But that is profoundly up to Russia and what it does going forward.”TopicsAntony BlinkenUS foreign policyUS politicsRussiaUkraineEuropenewsReuse this content More

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      With Ukraine Invasion, Hungary’s Leader Softens His Embrace of Russia

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      Facing an election on Sunday, Viktor Orban plays neutral peacemaker while campaigning against the “gender insanity” that he says is creeping in from the West.DEBRECEN, Hungary — The towering memorial, erected on the battlefield where the Russian imperial army routed Hungarian troops, mourns Russia’s 1849 victory over “brave homeland defenders.” It is a reminder of how, for centuries, the Hungarian psyche has been shaped and scarred by the specter of Russian domination.“There has been a constant fear of Russia,” said Gyorgy Miru, a history professor in Debrecen, a Hungarian city near the border with Ukraine where the battle took place.Under Prime Minister Viktor Orban, however, this fear has turned into a trusting embrace. Mr. Orban, a political bruiser who revels in defying what he scorns as liberal conventions, has for years looked to Russia as a reliable source of energy and its president, Vladimir V. Putin, as a beacon of no-nonsense nationalism and muscular leadership, emulating in a milder form the Kremlin’s stranglehold on media and its one-party system.Amid the agonies inflicted on neighboring Ukraine over the past five weeks by Moscow, Mr. Orban’s stance has left many in Hungary and beyond dismayed and angry that a nation with such a long and painful experience of Russian aggression could fall so far out of step with the rest of Europe.Facing an election on Sunday against an unusually united opposition, Mr. Orban has cast himself as a neutral peacemaker who does not want to fan the war by sending weapons to Ukraine or to hurt Hungarian interests by imposing a ban on Russian oil imports.“As a historian, I am surprised and shocked,” Professor Miru said, recalling that Russian troops not only crushed Hungary’s 1848-49 revolt against imperial rule by Austria but also an anti-communist rebellion in 1956.The memorial in Debrecen remembering Hungarians killed by Russian troops in 1849.The New York TimesIn a speech in Budapest on March 15, a national holiday to mark the start of the 1848 revolt, Mr. Orban turned what is usually a solemn occasion into an election rally featuring a call to arms against liberal values and Western solidarity against Russia over Ukraine.He vowed to “stop at Hungary’s border the gender insanity sweeping across the Western world” and to protect Hungarian national interests against the competing interests of Russia, Ukraine, the United States and the European Union. “We must represent our own interests, calmly and bravely,” he said, without mentioning Russia’s invasion.Mr. Orban has hardly applauded Russia’s military onslaught, which his government describes as “aggression.” But neither has he criticized Mr. Putin nor joined Poland, Britain, Germany and other European countries in helping Ukraine defend itself.Irpin, Ukraine, on Friday. Previous weeks of fighting between Ukrainian and Russian forces has damaged the city, which is northwest of Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital.Daniel Berehulak for The New York TimesHis opposition to a ban on Russian oil has infuriated Poland, whose conservative governing party previously stood shoulder to shoulder with Hungary in Europe’s culture wars. It was enough to lead the Czech defense minister, Jana Cernochova, to declare last week that she was “very sorry that cheap Russian oil is now more important to Hungarian politicians than Ukrainian blood.”The Czech minister canceled a trip to Hungary for a planned gathering of the Visegrad Group, comprising four previously close Central European states. Poland and Slovakia, the other scheduled attendees, also stayed away.The leader of Poland’s governing party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, Mr. Orban’s closest ally in the European Union, has tried to calm the rift, but even he has expressed dismay at Hungary’s fence-sitting on the war in Ukraine. “We view Hungary’s attitude with criticism, and we hope that it will become more involved,” Mr. Kaczynski told a conservative Polish weekly.Suspicion of Hungary over its ties to Moscow is so intense that some now see Mr. Orban’s nation, a member of NATO since 1999, as a weak link in the alliance.An exercise with NATO special forces troops in 2019 in Hungary. Some now consider Hungary a weak link in the alliance. The New York TimesAsked about Hungary’s hesitant support for Ukraine, Gabrielius Landsbergis, the Lithuanian foreign minister, lamented that “unwavering trust in some of our allies could be an unfortunate victim of Russia’s war against Ukraine.”Instead of rallying to help Ukraine, Mr. Orban has gone on the offensive against it, claiming on Friday that it had “made a pact” with his election rivals. This followed an earlier claim by his foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, that the Ukrainian foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, recently called Ukraine’s ambassador in Budapest to “consult on the possibility of influencing the election results in Hungary” in cahoots with the opposition. Mr. Kuleba responded by accusing his Hungarian counterpart of “inventing nonsense” for “short-term benefit before the elections” and “destroying the long-term relationship between us.”Mr. Orban, hailed as a hero by many American conservatives, has taken broad steps in recent years to use his power to erode democratic norms, but his moves to revise election laws to benefit his party and mute critical voices in the media have been especially notable as the vote nears on Sunday. Opinion polls suggest Mr. Orban’s Fidesz party will again win, though it may fall short of the two-thirds majority in Parliament that had allowed Mr. Orban to rewrite the Constitution and turn Hungary into a semi-autocratic state.At a closed-door meeting on Thursday in Slovakia of nine regional foreign ministers, Mr. Szijjarto complained irritably that Hungary had been misunderstood and denied it was siding with Russia, according to a minister who was present.Seeking to rally Mr. Orban’s base ahead of the election, Mr. Szijjarto traveled the previous day to Debrecen and visited a campaign office for the Fidesz party. Asked as he was leaving whether Hungary’s policy toward Russia had left his country isolated, he shouted, “No, no, no,” and rushed out of the building to a waiting limousine.Hungary’s foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, center, on Wednesday in Debrecen.The New York TimesFamous across Hungary as the place where anti-imperial rebels issued Hungary’s declaration of independence in 1849, Debrecen has long been associated with Hungarian nationalism. The city, said Robert Hermann, a leading Hungarian scholar of the 1848 revolution, “is our Philadelphia,” a reference to the city where rebellious American colonies declared their independence from Britain in 1776.Hungary, he added, was never as passionately hostile to Russia as Poland was, in part because Russian troops who fought in Debrecen and other rebel strongholds in the 19th century tended to treat Hungarian captives relatively well. But wariness of Moscow, amplified by its brutal crushing of Hungary’s 1956 anti-Soviet uprising, he said, still runs deep, particularly on the right.Under Mr. Orban, however, “distrust of Russia on the right went into the background,” Mr. Hermann said, as Fidesz, despite its strongly nationalist tinge, embraced a view of Russia that had previously been confined to the left. Describing himself as a “liberal nationalist,” Mr. Hermann said he had been “very confused” by Mr. Orban’s sharp tilt toward Moscow after he took power in 2010.Also confused has been Debrecen University, which in 2017 awarded Mr. Putin the title of “honorary citizen” as part of Hungary’s courtship of the Kremlin. A week after he invaded Ukraine, it issued a statement that avoided criticizing the Russian leader but subtly declared his title void, since he had not visited in person to collect it.Ukrainian refugees on Thursday at a shelter in Budapest.The New York TimesDespite first making his name as an anti-Moscow firebrand who in 1989 demanded that 80,000 Soviet troops then in Hungary go home, Mr. Orban has repeatedly spoken in recent years of the need to get along with Mr. Putin. In an interview with an Italian newspaper in 2018, he acknowledged that “in the past, we Hungarians have suffered a lot under Russia.” But he added that “it needs to be recognized that Putin has made his country great again” and that he should not be viewed as a devil “with hooves and horns” but as a leader who “rules a great and ancient empire.”Mr. Orban’s outreach to Mr. Putin has been driven in part by close cooperation on energy. Russia lent Hungary $10 billion to finance the construction of a nuclear power plant by a Russian company and provided it with natural gas at favorable prices. But there has also been a political dimension, with Mr. Orban looking to Moscow as an ally in the struggle against progressive ideas seeping in from Western Europe. Like Mr. Putin, Mr. Orban has often spoken about what he sees as the threat posed by gay men, lesbians and transgender people and their advocates.Supporters of Mr. Orban in Szekesfehervar, Hungary, on Friday during the rally.The New York TimesWhile Poland has been plastered in recent weeks with Ukrainian flags and other signs of solidarity with its eastern neighbor, streets across Hungary have been decked with placards trumpeting the need to “protect our children.” Alongside a vote on Sunday for Parliament, Hungarians are also being asked to vote on a series of inflammatory questions, like, “Do you support the promotion of sex reassignment therapy for underage children?”In early February, as fears mounted of a coming Russian invasion of Ukraine and European leaders warned of severe sanctions if an attack occurred, Mr. Orban visited Moscow to cement his country’s energy ties with Russia. For his efforts, he secured a promise from Mr. Putin that Hungary, unlike other European countries, had no need to worry about running short of natural gas.Mr. Orban described Mr. Putin’s security demands as “normal” and sanctions as pointless. The Russian president returned the favor, telling Mr. Orban that while Russia did not usually take sides in foreign elections: “You have done so much in your work on the Russia track, both in the interest of Hungary and Russia. I hope our cooperation will continue.”After Russian troops invaded Ukraine, Hungary joined fellow members of the European Union in imposing sanctions on Moscow, but it has since refused to let weapons destined for Ukraine pass through its territory and resisted efforts to impose restrictions on Russian energy imports.With television stations and many print outlets controlled directly by the state or by government-friendly tycoons, Hungary’s governing party, Fidesz, has shifted its nationalist base away from its traditional fear of Russia toward the belief that Mr. Putin stands on the same side of the barricades in defending traditional values.Outside the House of Terror, a museum in Budapest focusing on the fascist and communist governments in 20th-century Hungary. The museum is also a memorial to the victims.The New York Times“Thanks to Orban’s media, Putin is now more popular in this segment of the population than the American president or the German chancellor,” said Zoltan Biro, a Russia expert at the Corvinus University in Budapest.Speaking outside the Fidesz election headquarters in Debrecen this past week, Tibor Tisza, a taxi company owner and enthusiastic party supporter, said he had visited the local memorial to Hungarians killed by Russian troops in 1849. But he said he felt no ill will toward Russia because it “finally has a real, powerful and patriotic leader” who battles to protect children and national interests just as Mr. Orban does.Mr. Tisza said he regretted the bloodshed in Ukraine but, echoing a theme regularly promoted by Fidesz-friendly news media outlets, accused Kyiv of harboring Nazis and restricting the rights of both ethnic Russians and ethnic Hungarians to live in peace.He added that he was not against Ukraine but did not want Hungary to get sucked into its war with Russia. “If my neighbor’s house is on fire,” Mr. Tisza, “should I set my own house on fire, too?”Tomas Dapkus More

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      ‘I know how much it hurts’: Biden to release US oil in bid to lower gas prices – as it happened

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      Key events

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      ‘Incontrovertible evidence that this [war] has been a strategic disaster for Russia’ – White House

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      Biden: Putin may be in ‘self-isolation’

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      Romney: $10bn ‘agreement in principle’ over Covid relief

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      Pelosi wants inquiry on Russia’s ‘crimes against children’

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      Oil prices plunge as Biden mulls 180m barrel release

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      Biden confirms draw on oil reserves to lower gas prices

      Joe Biden says his plan to release 1m barrels daily from the US strategic oil reserves will: “Ease the pain families are feeling right now, end this era of dependence and uncertainty and lay a new and new foundation for true and lasting American energy independence.”
      The president is speaking live at the White House to announce the move, which he said would last up to six months and which will represent the largest ever draw ever on the country’s emergency supplies.
      “I know how much it hurts,” he said of rising gas prices that have followed the decision by the Russian president Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine.
      “Putin’s price hike is hitting Americans at the pump.” More

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      In Hungary, Viktor Orban Remakes an Election to His Liking

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      BUDAPEST — During the dark winter of the 2020 coronavirus wave, the Hungarian government set up a website so anxious residents could sign up for the news on the pandemic. For months, the system sent out updates about the virus, testing and where to get vaccinated.But last month, long after the vaccination drive had peaked, the system blasted out a very different type of alert: an email claiming, falsely, that opponents of Prime Minister Viktor Orban were agitating to drag Hungary into the war in Ukraine.“This is cheating,” said Klara Dobrev, a Hungarian member of the European Parliament and one of those accused in the email. “Using public money for obviously party propaganda? This is obviously election fraud.”In more than a decade in power, Mr. Orban has not hesitated to use the levers of government power to erode democratic norms and cement one-party rule. He has rewritten the Constitution, remade the courts and used state-run and privately owned television stations — even school textbooks — to advance his agenda or push misinformation about his rivals.He has always justified his brand of what he calls “illiberal democracy” by pointing out that, like other European leaders, he has won free and fair elections. Now, though, as he stands on Sunday for re-election against an unexpectedly organized opposition, Mr. Orban is using the power of his office to shape the contours of the election more to his liking.Supporters of Mr. Orban’s government at a so-called peace march in Budapest, as Hungarians marked this month the anniversary of the country’s civic revolution and war of independence of 1848-1849. Ferenc Isza/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesHe has unleashed a fresh round of election law changes that benefit his party. He put an inflammatory but ultimately symbolic L.G.B.T. referendum up for a vote, a move that is likely to rally his most strident supporters. And he legalized the registration of voters outside of their home districts — a common practice, until now criminal, that is known as “voter tourism.”All of that is playing out in a media echo chamber, since Mr. Orban has cemented control of public television to the point where stories, photos and guests are handpicked to align with his talking points. Many of the largest independent news outlets have been taken over by Mr. Orban’s supporters.The situation is considered so extraordinary that the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, an intergovernmental organization, is sending observers to monitor the elections. It is only the second time in the European Union’s history that the group has started a full-scale monitoring operation on an E.U. member.“We are very, very far away from a fair electoral environment,” said Robert Laszlo an election analyst with Political Capital, an independent Hungarian policy center.Mr. Orban, a canny political survivor who relishes a fight, has given no indication he is worried about the election monitors or the outcome. “I can’t remember the last time the stars aligned so well, 19 days before an election,” he declared at a rally this month.L.G.B.T.Q. activists in front of the Parliament building in Budapest, as they announced plans in January for a pride parade in July.Attila Kisbenedek/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesWhen The New York Times asked Mr. Orban’s office for a comment on the election law changes, Rajmund Fekete, the chief of staff for the spokesman, replied in an email that they did not plan to comment and would respond “with other means.” He would not elaborate.Hungary’s elections come at a challenging moment for democracy worldwide, as governments chip away at bedrock principles like academic freedom, free speech and judicial independence. Mr. Orban, who is seeking his fourth consecutive term and fifth overall, has become a hero among many American conservatives, who are also locked in their own fights over voting laws and access to the polls.When it comes to election fairness, Hungary now more closely resembles the Soviet era than the free elections that followed the fall of Communism, according to the Swedish nonprofit group V-Dem, which rates countries on a host of democratic indicators.“Election fraud doesn’t start at 7 a.m., when the polls are open,” Ms. Dobrev said. “Election fraud has been going on in Hungary for years.”Signing the PapersIn the tiny village of Kispalad, at the northeastern tip of Hungary along the border with Ukraine, the mayor summoned a local woman to the town hall to sign some papers. It was mid-2014, and the mayor, a member of Mr. Orban’s party, was locked in a tight re-election race.The woman, Jozsefne Sanko, was a seasonal cucumber-picker and would soon be out of work. If Ms. Sanko signed the papers, the mayor said, she’d be guaranteed public-assistance jobs for her and her family.Volunteer ballot counters listening to a presentation in Budapest. A grass-roots civic initiative has recruited more than 20,000 volunteer ballot counters to ensure a fair tally in upcoming elections in Hungary.Anna Szilagyi/Associated Press“There is no work around here,” her son Adam Sanko said in an interview. “So my mom signed the papers.”In signing, Ms. Sanko attested that 135 Ukrainians lived in her tiny home. That made them eligible to vote in Hungarian elections.The mayor’s offer was part of a common tactic in Hungary called voter tourism, which allows nonresidents to register using addresses in Hungary. On Election Day, they cross the border by car, bike or bus, then vote and return home.Until recently, voter tourism was a type of fraud. Ms. Sanko and the mayor received fines in 2020 after what she had done became a local scandal.But Mr. Orban has legalized the practice for the upcoming election. He is popular in these rural villages, but since the government refuses to make historical voter data public, it is impossible to know whether voter tourism has changed the outcome in any of these small districts.Mr. Sanko believes it can. In every election, he said voters arrive from out of the country with lists of names they are expected to vote for. “Now, this is totally legal,” he said.“I can’t remember the last time the stars aligned so well, 19 days before an election,” Mr. Orban declared at a rally this month.Anna Szilagyi/Associated PressVoter tourism also has something of a mail-in equivalent.Hungarian citizens can mail in their ballots, but only if they do not have a residence in the country. That overwhelmingly applies to ethnic Hungarians in neighboring countries like Romania and Serbia, a constituency whose votes Mr. Orban has courted for years.By contrast, roughly 100,000 Hungarian citizens live in the United Kingdom, a more left-leaning voting bloc that includes students and foreign workers. But voters in Britain must travel in person to London or Manchester to cast ballots. Mr. Orban’s government has rejected calls to open more polling places.A Supermajority in Name OnlyTo understand one of the ways Mr. Orban has reshaped democracy, consider this: When his political party, Fidesz, won the last two national elections, it received less than half the votes, yet still secured a two-thirds supermajority in Parliament. The supermajority has allowed Mr. Orban to ram through changes to the Constitution as part of his illiberal agenda.The explanation lies in Hungary’s complex electoral system: The country is divided into 106 districts, each of which elects a member to Parliament, much like members of Congress are seated in the United States. But then another 93 seats are awarded to political parties based on a unique formula.Mr. Orban changed that formula for handing out seats in dramatic fashion to benefit Fidesz. Parties that win big in the district elections can get extra seats — a move that is expected to pad Fidesz’s winning margin in Parliament if it realizes big wins in gerrymandered districts.Peter Marki-Zay celebrating his victory in October to become the opposition candidate in a long-shot bid against Mr. Orban.Akos Stiller for The New York TimesHe has also made it harder for small parties to get any seats at all under the formula. But to counter him, Socialists, Greens, centrists, fiscal hawks and Christian conservatives have united behind the economist Peter Marki-Zay in a long shot bid to beat Mr. Orban, or at least shatter his supermajority since Mr. Marki-Zay has a six-party coalition behind him.Mr. Laszlo, the independent election analyst, estimates that because of the gerrymandered districts and new election rules, the opposition will need to win by as much as six percentage points to unseat Mr. Orban.“There’s a debate among the opposition on whether you should even take part in the election, whether you legitimize it by taking part in it,” said Gergely Karacsony, the mayor of Budapest and a leading opposition politician.Gerrymandering is just one problem for the opposition. Television time is another.Early on a Wednesday morning, less than three weeks before the election, the leader of the opposition party, Mr. Marki-Zay, was given his first and only appearance on Hungary’s largest public television station.“Thanks for allowing the entire opposition five minutes in the past four years to speak,” Mr. Marki-Zay said during his appearance. “That I could not come here until now is likely for the same reason that Viktor Orban is unwilling to partake in a live debate. It’s much easier to lie, defame and to conduct a smear campaign.”Asylum seekers crossing the border between Hungary and Serbia in 2015. Photos of women and children refugees were prohibited on public television, as they might undermine Mr. Orban’s hard-line anti-immigration stance.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesBecause Mr. Orban controls public television, and his allies dominate private media, voters are inundated with coverage that favors him. Opposition parties can’t pay for political advertising on television because it is illegal — even though the public channels regularly put out “public service” announcements that critics say are thinly veiled ads for Mr. Orban or his agenda.Stories that criticize Mr. Orban’s favorite targets — the billionaire George Soros or the European Union, for example — are welcome. Photos of women and children who are refugees, for example, were prohibited, as they might garner sympathy and undermine Mr. Orban’s hard-line anti-immigration stance.“There was an explicit order against this,” said Andras Rostovanyi, who was an editor with the state broadcaster M1 until the end of 2019.In one news meeting, a recording of which was obtained by Radio Free Europe, an editor is heard telling reporters that the station does not support Mr. Orban’s opponents, and anyone who objects to that policy can leave.Mr. Orban with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in Moscow last month.Pool photo by Mikhael KlimentyevThis control over the media has helped Mr. Orban shield from public view what might have been a vulnerability: his political ties to Moscow and his fondness for the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin.With Russian troops laying siege to civilians in nearby Ukraine, Mr. Orban might have faced pointed questions about his past support of Mr. Putin; instead, he has simply rewritten the narrative.One example is a pro-Orban website and Facebook page “Numbers and Facts,” which links to it. Both post the same content. Every day, they churn out headlines that cheer Mr. Orban. Their content argues that the West is to blame for the war, that Russia has legitimate territorial claims to parts of Ukraine, that Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, is a murderous dictator and that the Russian invasion was defensive.Such views might have lived and died among the Facebook page’s community of 85,000, but the pro-Orban television station PestiTV started a weekly news show late last year that it said was produced in collaboration “with the highly successful Numbers and Facts.”So the message that Mr. Orban is the voice of reason and his opponents are warmongers echoes across all media: from the fringes of Facebook and pro-Orban news outlets to public broadcasters and even Hungary’s vaccine alert system.A billboard for Mr. Orban’s Fidesz party cautioned voters not to choose the “dangerous” opposition over images of Mr. Marki-Zay and the former socialist prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsany, in Kisvarda, a town in eastern Hungary.Attila Kisbenedek/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesPatrick Kingsley More

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      What Is Vladimir Putin’s Endgame?

      by

      After a series of horrific events, I am sat wearing four layers of clothing while penning this piece. Other than at the time I was writing the article, “Is Moscow Turning Off the Gas Tap?” — when the heating was coincidently not working at my office — I decided to turn off my radiator on purpose.

      Ending the War in Ukraine

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      Ridiculous as it might sound, it is my tiny attempt to act against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, to somehow fight this sense of helplessness, being forced to watch the events unfold, without being able to do much.

      Building Up to War in Ukraine

      It all started a couple of days before February 24, which is when Russia invaded Ukraine. I was preparing for a trip to Kyiv to check on my friends in the Ukrainian capital. Following the latest developments, I tried to find any information that would confirm what the Russian ambassador to the EU had stated on February 16. Vladimir Chizhov said there would “be no escalation in the coming week, or in the week after that, or in the coming month.” Saying one thing and doing another has long been part of the Russian political playbook. Yet the cynicism in saying that wars in Europe “rarely start on a Wednesday” — in reference to US intelligence reports — just to actually invade eight days later is unacceptable.

      On Sunday, February 20 at around 10 pm, I ultimately decided not to set the alarm for later that night in order to arrive at the airport on time. I went to bed with a heavy heart and a sense of cowardice: I decided not to travel to Kyiv. I felt as if I had betrayed the Ukrainian people, especially my friend, who assured me that everything was fine and everyone was calm. Over the next few days, I tried to drown out the voice in the back of my head saying, “You should have gone” by repeating this mantra to myself: If you bring an umbrella, it will not rain.

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      And then we all heard the news. I can only imagine how it must have felt to be actually woken up by air raid sirens — it’s unfathomable. I saw a map of Ukraine showing where the Russian bombs hit. I reached out to friends and colleagues in these places. So far, they are fortunately all fine. I admire their strength and bravery for remaining in Ukraine.

      Back in the office in Vienna, I sat with my colleagues. While we tried to at least grasp what this meant for all of us, we began to realize that this was not just another crisis; this was a decisive development in history. This is war in Europe. It is not the first conflict in Europe since the end of World War II. It is not even the first in Ukraine; the country has been at war since 2014. Back then, during the Revolution of Dignity, the Euromaidan, Ukrainians gave their lives for democracy, our democracy.

      That is precisely why it is only logical for Ukraine to apply for membership in the European Union. Although there is no shortcut to joining the EU, under certain circumstances, it can become possible. Membership in the union should not only remain symbolic. I have written more about this here. In fact, I have been arguing with colleagues about granting such rights to all eastern partnership target countries since 2009. This would, of course, not have prevented anything today. Other actions might have, such as reducing the import dependency on natural resources after the Russia–Ukraine gas crisis of the same year.

      But there is no use in dwelling on the past. Instead, I want to think about the future. Therefore, I have compiled five different scenarios about how the situation in Ukraine could develop. None of them must become a reality, and some of them, hopefully, will not.

      1: All-out (Nuclear) War

      Nuclear war is certainly the worst-case scenario for all sides. An increasingly frustrated and isolated Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, decides to use tactical nuclear weapons to submerge the Ukrainian resistance. Even if it will “only” involve non-nuclear attacks continuing the obliteration of whole cities and committing war crimes, the democratic international community seriously asks themselves if they can allow this to happen.

      Even if they do, the probability that Putin will stop at the border with Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, the Baltics or Finland is delusional. Consequently, NATO, sooner or later, has to get involved, resulting in World War III.

      I believe that we are actually already at war since February 24 but haven’t realized it yet. It might also continue as a war of attrition and continue indefinitely.

      2: Novorossiya

      This second scenario refers to what Putin himself mentioned in one of his infamous television Q&As in 2014. It has been used in various contexts, with reference to Alexander Dugin, but also as an idea raised by the so-called People’s Republics in Donetsk and Luhansk of the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine. The planned confederation was ultimately not implemented.

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      The reference dates back to a more or less geographically same area referred to as “New Russia” during the Soviet era until the turn of the century. In any case, Putin mentioned the cities of Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, Mykolaiv and Odessa — essentially the whole Black Sea coast of Ukraine, linking up the Russian Federation with Transnistria. Since the Transnistria War in 1992, Russian troops have been stationed in the breakaway territory, which is officially part of Moldova.

      This scenario involves the creation of many more “people’s republics,” which are under the influence — politically and economically — of the Kremlin and dependent on it. Recognition of such republics by Moscow or even integration into the Russian Federation is also a possibility.

      Further separatist regions beyond Ukraine are also declared, expanding Russian influence even more. This takes place mostly in the Caucasus, but also in the direction of the former spheres of influence of the Soviet Union.

      3: Fragmentation

      In a more hopeful scenario, Putin’s aggression leads to destabilization within the Russian Federation. While having to devote a majority of the country’s military capacities but also attention and political capital toward Ukraine, old separatist attempts resurface.

      The control over Chechnya is substantially weakened due to the de-facto defeat of Ramzan Kadyrov’s forces. But also further disintegration occurs. Not necessarily violently, but more economic-based toward dependence of Siberia on China or Vladivostok on Japan. The resulting fragmentation and volatility have major consequences for the whole neighborhood but also geopolitically.

      4: Coup d’état

      There have been (too optimistic) rumors about a possible coup being planned by the Federal Security Service (FSB) of Russia. Leaks from the “Wind of Change” lead to an ousting of Putin and his closest circle.

      While it cannot be ruled out, there should not be any false hope. If the security forces and/or the military carry out a coup d’état, we will not see any democratic regime change.

      Most likely, the people belonging to the closest circle of power are replaced, but the mafia system continues with a new godfather who ends the war but distributes the spoils. It is also possible that we will see a military hard-liner taking charge, which could then end in scenario one.

      5: Democratic Revolution

      The most optimistic, but unfortunately most unlikely, scenario would foresee the sanctions against Russia and the isolation of the federation as leading to the people bringing regime change and possibly democratization.

      Embed from Getty Images

      In a Maidan-style occupation of the Red Square, Putin is unable to suppress the opposition any longer. It takes a lot of time to account for past actions, reconciliation and anti-corruption measures, but the missed opportunity of the 1990s is finally taken up. Coupled with the enlarged EU economic and security cooperation, there is now a counterpart to the geopolitical volatility caused by China’s ambitions and the political instability of the United States.

      The Outlook

      Regardless of which direction the situation takes (although I most certainly have a preference), it is necessary to be prepared for all eventualities. It is a good sign that there has been enough awareness for Ukraine as well as the necessity to think about the economic requirements to rebuild after the war.

      Nevertheless, it is possible to achieve peace, especially with regard to the importing of oil and gas from Russia. Far too often, we are focused on the immediate costs and do not look at the possibilities. A transition to renewable energy is more necessary than ever, but the hesitancy has kept us dependent on Moscow. Just imagine what the situation would have looked like if a transition had been sped up in 2009.

      Hopefully, we have finally learned the lesson. After all, the price we pay is just money. Ukraine is paying with its life, its infrastructure and, ultimately, its future.

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of the Institute for the Danube Region and Central Europe.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More