The EU discards members, protects non-members.
By J.B. Shurk
American Thinker
March 26, 2026
What's in a name ? These daysnot much.
The European Union does not include Ukraine; nevertheless and notwithstanding the objections of E.U. members Hungary and Slovakia, the European supra-state insists on paying the salaries of Ukraine's government bureaucracy while that nation's martial-law-holdover-president, Volodymyr Zelensky, fights to maintain control over a breakaway region that has rejected Ukrainian rule since the 2014 coup d'état of Ukraine's then-president, Viktor Yanukovych.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization does not include Ukraine; nevertheless and notwithstanding the objections of NATO members Hungary and Slovakia, the American-led military alliance insists on sending money and weapons to the Kyiv regime warring with the Russian Federation over territories whose people overwhelmingly identify as Russian. Former Dutch prime minister and current secretary general of NATO, Mark Rutte, has stated on multiple occasions that the military alliance would continue to help defend non-NATO-member Ukraine. According to Ukraine's newly appointed, thirty-something-year-old defense minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine has over two million draft dodgers and a quarter of a million active-duty troops who have gone AWOL. So NATO is protecting a non-NATO country whose men refuse to fight. NATO is assisting a Kyiv dictatorship that depends almost entirely upon conscription (including the violent "busification" of "recruits" after draft officers break into vehicles and homes with drawn weapons).
While the E.U. and NATO fight Russian authoritarianism by protecting Ukrainian authoritarianism, both institutions have remained relatively quiet as member states sustain actual attacks. Seven months after Russia moved to annex the Russophone regions of Ukraine, the Nord Stream pipelines transporting natural gas from Russia to Germany were sabotaged and made inoperable. German, Dutch, and French energy companies own interests in the pipelines. Subsequent German investigations have identified a dozen Ukrainian suspects, including members of a Kyiv diving school where military personnel train. Several independent journalists have concluded that Ukraine's military carried out the underwater demolition of the Nord Stream pipelines.
If Ukraine's government was, in fact, responsible for the destruction of the pipelines, then Ukraine (a non-NATO member) destroyed property belonging to NATO members. Ukraine's alleged act of sabotage cut off Russia's inexpensive natural gas from most of Europe. (Prior to the war, Russia supplied 45% of the E.U.'s natural gas imports.) So the destruction of the pipelines has raised the cost of energy (and the price of finished goods transported within the Union) for European citizens. NATO continues to protect a nation that may have directly attacked members of the military alliance.
Similarly, Ukraine has caused an international incident with regard to the European-Russian Druzhba (which means, "friendship") Pipeline that was jointly constructed to transport Russian oil to Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Germany, and the Czech Republic. Last year, Ukraine's military bombed several pumping stations servicing the pipeline. This year, Ukraine's government claims that Russia attacked the Ukrainian section of the Druzhba Pipeline (a claim the Russian Federation denies), effectively halting all deliveries of Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia. As both nations are almost entirely dependent upon this oil supply, the pipeline's inoperability has created a major energy crisis for citizens of Hungary and Slovakia. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico blame Ukraine for the oil shutdown. Ukraine's president/dictator Zelensky says he has no intention of repairing the pipeline. After Hungary and Slovakia blocked additional sanctions on the Russian Federation and a ninety-billion-euro gift (a loan that never needs to be repaid) for Ukraine's regime, Ukraine's military destroyed another critical transit node of the Druzhba Pipeline in Russia.
President/Dictator Zelensky also made a little news two weeks ago when he directly threatened Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán's life: "We hope that in the European Union, one person will not block the ninety billion [euros]. Otherwise, we will give this person's address to the armed forces, to our guys, let them call him and talk to him in their own language." Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó condemned Kyiv's thuggish "culture": "This is the man Brussels admires and the country they want to fast-track into the European Union.No one can blackmail us just because we refuse to pay the price of Ukraine's war and refuse to accept higher energy prices because of Ukraine." Prime Minister Orbán took the Ukrainian threat on his life in stride, saying: "There will be no deals, no compromise. We will break the Ukrainian oil blockade by force. Hungary's energy will soon flow again through the Friendship pipeline."
Orbán followed up by very publicly intercepting part of Zelensky's alleged money-laundering operation running through Hungary. Foreign Minister Szijjártó revealed that Hungary had already confiscated Ukrainian "mafia" funds that included tens of millions of U.S. dollars, tens of millions of euros, and a few million dollars in gold bars. In addition, the foreign minister has alleged that several billion dollars worth of currency and gold have been transported through Hungary to Ukraine in the last two months. A former Ukrainian general who once oversaw Zelensky's intelligence service and secret police was detained in Hungary in connection to the suspected money laundering. An angry Zelensky again threatened to send Ukraine's "special military operators" to Prime Minister Orbán's home.
In response to Zelensky's increasingly belligerent behavior, Prime Minister Fico urged the European Commission to distance itself from Zelensky's "outrageous blackmailing statements." The best that the Commission could do was a short statement from its deputy chief spokesperson, Olof Gill, in which the Eurocrat clinically observed: "Specifically in relation to the comments made by President Zelensky, we are very clear as the European Commission that that type of language is not acceptable. There must not be threats against EU member states." At the same time, E.U. leaders pledged to provide for Ukraine's budgetary needs for at least the next two years.
Ukraine is effectively waging an economic/energy war against Hungary and Slovakia. Hungary and Slovakia are members of the E.U. and NATO. Ukraine is a member of neither. Nevertheless, the E.U. and NATO continue to take Ukraine's side. It is as if "unions" and "alliances" mean nothing.
In fact, the E.U. is not hiding its disdain for Hungary's Orbán. Brussels has made it very clear that it prefers Péter Magyar's Tisza Party to oust Orbán's Fidesz Party in Hungary's upcoming parliamentary elections. The European Commission has activated its Rapid Response System to "combat potential Russian online disinformation campaigns" in Hungary. The E.U.'s handpicked "fact checkers" will use the powers of the new Digital Services Act to decide when online public debate qualifies as "disinformation" that must be censored.
The U.S. House Judiciary Committee recently concluded that the E.U.'s Rapid Response System almost exclusively targets so-called "right-wing" and "populist" political candidates. The European Commission has extended its online censorship campaign to one week after Hungary's elections, allowing Eurocrats to monitor and censor public conversations concerning the election's legitimacy. While E.U.-funded NGOs work to oust Prime Minister Orbán, E.U.-funded censors will be in a position to label allegations of European election meddling as nothing more than "Russian talking points."
Just as in Romania, Moldova, Germany, France, and the Netherlands, the E.U. will use its army of paid "influencers" and propagandists posing as "journalists" to manipulate the outcome of Hungary's elections. To "save democracy," Brussels's Eurocrats believe that they are entitled to choose each nation's leaders. They don't want Orbán because Hungary's current prime minister continues to block the E.U.'s funding for Ukraine. Brussels would do anything for martial-law-holdover-president/dictator Zelensky and non-E.U. Ukraine. But allowing the citizens of E.U.-member Hungary to vote for their own national interests ? That simply won't do.
This article was originally published on American Thinker.