Russian Peace Diplomacy Is Essentially Waging War with Other Means

The interview discusses the planned meeting in Budapest between President Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump. It suggests that Putin aims to weaken a unified Europe by supporting figures like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, portraying him as a “peace warrior” to destabilize the EU and drive wedges among European countries. Moscow views peace as a tactical pause to advance its war goals through other tools, not genuine reconciliation. Buda Péter stresses that the “Christian nationalist” ideology and peace rhetoric used by Russia and its allies are part of a geopolitical game to confuse and destabilize opponents. This mirrors Cold War tactics where cultural and ideological influence was a weapon. Today, Russia pushes conservative and nationalist values to gain support in the West against liberal forces. The piece warns that what appears as a diplomatic success may in reality be a strategic Russian move to buy time and lull adversaries while continuing aggression. The article highlights the shifted political alliances under Trump’s and Putin’s influence. Finally, it notes that hosting the summit in Budapest signals increased influence of the ideology that fuses “Christian nationalism” and pro-Russian positions, which risks weakening Western democratic and secular values.

• What domestic political benefit could Viktor Orbán gain from hosting a meeting between the American and Russian presidents in Budapest?

There is clearly a domestic political calculation behind the choice of location. Let’s not forget that both Putin and Trump recently voiced support for Orbán’s re-election. In other words, the political survival of the Hungarian Prime Minister is an important consideration for both of them. In my opinion, one of the most interesting and important questions about the meeting is exactly why that is. Readers may recall that Telex previously published an interview where it was mentioned that Putin is trying to elevate Orbán by positioning him as a “peace advocate,” in order to weaken Europe through him and the EU-skeptical forces he influences.

For Putin, Europe is an adversary as long as it remains united. Once it becomes divided, it becomes something to rule over. In other words, what is bad for Europe is good for Moscow. From Washington’s point of view, the political ideology represented by the Hungarian leader is also the reason for the support. This is about a civilizational — or, if you prefer, political-cultural — shift, a kind of “revolution,” in which Viktor Orbán has long been one of the leading international figures.

• You recently wrote on your Substack, that Orbán’s peace rhetoric is, in reality, part of an information warfare campaign that serves to relatively maximize Russian war interests.

The Soviet/Russian worldview sees peace merely as one expression of its ongoing political conflict with Western democracies — a tool for masking a totalitarian, militarist, and imperialist expansionist policy. In other words, it always seeks victory with the least possible risk. Choosing a “peace strategy” simply signals that, at a given time, stepping back from armed confrontation serves Moscow’s war aims better. Take, for example, the Alaska meeting: at the time, Trump was threatening Putin with brutal sanctions — and then suddenly, a meeting was arranged, and the idea of sanctions disappeared from the agenda.

For Putin, both the ‘Christian nationalist’ ideology and the peace rhetoric are just tactics in a game. The aim of both is to win over the opponent’s camp, or to ideologically confuse and destabilize them. The world has unfortunately forgotten this, but we are still dealing with one of the most important tools of Cold War-era Soviet warfare. It was so important, in fact, that during the first decades of the Cold War, the West — led by American intelligence — set up international organizations like the Congress for Cultural Freedom to counter the ideological and cultural influence Moscow was exerting over the Western public, scientific, and cultural elite — just like today, even in the United States!

These people — much like today’s Western sympathizers of Putin — continued to admire Stalinist Russia despite the fact that many brutal examples of the regime’s cruelty had already come to light. Today, the same thing is happening — only now, Moscow is trying to sell itself not as the beacon of social progress, but as the defender of “conservative values.” This is how it manages to win over the enemies of its Western political enemies: the identitarian, nationalist forces opposing liberal movements.

• Why is Putin willing to sit at the negotiating table?

It’s not because of the urge of the peace doves, but because of the prospect of military threats and economic sanctions. Let me quote Vice President J. D. Vance, who recently pointed out that it is precisely these factors — Russia’s relative weakness — that could help lead to an agreement, if at all. So the question arises: wouldn’t it have been worth using the tools of deterrence much earlier, and with the necessary weight? How many human lives and how much physical destruction are those responsible for who blocked this for years — and who now present themselves as angels of peace?

• Can Viktor Orbán present the Budapest meeting as a diplomatic success?

Yes. It can be used to reinforce the narrative that Orbán is a leader with international influence and a “champion of peace.” On the other hand, based on the proverb “birds of a feather flock together” this won’t be seen as a positive event by everyone. And of course, the question is how long the expected boost in popularity will last among “average voters” who are more influenced by their everyday struggles than by the Hungarian Prime Minister’s diplomatic successes.

A lot will depend on what happens after the meeting. After all, following the Alaska summit — which was originally floated as possibly taking place in Budapest — nothing actually happened. Or rather, what happened was that Putin successfully maneuvered to neutralize Trump, who had previously threatened him with very harsh sanctions. Then he continued bombing Ukraine.

Putin’s intentions for this summit are similar. Once again: Russian peace diplomacy is the continuation of war by other means. Its goal is to lull the adversary into a false sense of security and to buy time. A peace that aligns with Russian interests essentially means victory in the war. And that, in turn, encourages further aggression by Moscow, which seeks to exploit perceived weakness. This is an eternal law of geopolitics. What now appears to be a diplomatic success may, in the long term, lay the groundwork for a serious tragedy.

• To what extent could all this isolate Orbán within the EU — or, on the contrary, strengthen him?

The idea of Orbán’s isolation within Europe belongs to the category of wishful thinking. Some analysts have been yearning for this outcome for years, but the current trend doesn’t point in that direction. Since the rise of Donald Trump — and with him, the identitarian political movement — to power in the U.S., the alliance dynamics of a world order previously built on transatlantic cooperation have begun to shift at a fundamental level.

Russia is no longer an irreconcilable enemy, because its political culture — which once made it so — now, in many ways, resembles the one promoted by key figures of the MAGA camp, such as Vice President J.D. Vance, more than it resembles Europe’s. We must face the fact — and clearly, many politicians and experts still struggle to do so — that secular, democratic Europe is ideologically further from today’s United States than Russia is, with its emphasis on identitarian and Christian nationalist elements.

• Is the United States ready to give up on Europe?

By no means. Today, Washington aims to transform Europe by enforcing a political and cultural revolution similar to the one that took place in the US. This is where Viktor Orbán comes in. This is why President Trump is intervening so openly in Hungarian elections. Just like Putin — who he expects that a Christian-nationalist “cultural revolution” will lead to the collapse of the democratic European project. After all, by its very nature, identitarian ideology is incompatible with the European project, which is built on democratic consensus and compromise based on equality. And once again, what harms Europe benefits Putin, who — due to Russia’s relative weakness — can only build his imperial strategy on the division of the West.

I’m afraid that for Europe to wake up and reject these forces, it will have to first experience the bitter fruits inevitably produced by the ideological and cultural trends we’ve been analyzing here — fruits that Putin is counting on to ripen quite precisely.

The head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Epiphanius, recently said at an event in Prague that “Russia is using religion as a weapon of hybrid aggression against Ukraine, Europe, and more broadly, against the principles of freedom and human dignity.” I have previously written about this issue on multiple occasions.

According to the Ukrainian church leader, many still underestimate the role of religion — or more precisely, as he puts it, the “pseudo-religious factor” — in justifying and advancing Russian aggression. He said that in the West, Russian propaganda frames this war as a forced defense in the name of “traditional values” against the rise of “godless liberalism.” In other words, Russia does not appear as an aggressor, but rather as the false protector of “traditional Christianity.” The church leader firmly condemns this practice and warns not to fall for Russia’s influence operations.

All of this is important to highlight in connection with the upcoming Trump–Putin “peace talks” in Budapest. The choice of Hungary — and specifically Budapest — as the location clearly signals the growing influence of the ideological current that seeks closer alignment with Russia under the banner of the “Christian-nationalist” civilizational shift represented by the Hungarian Prime Minister. In other words, it reflects an attempt to establish a shared ideological platform — one that uses religion as a political tool, as criticized by the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church — as the basis for a new international realignment of alliances.

The success of this idea would mean the victory of Russia’s strategy. It is not because it would result in the creation of a new international order led by Moscow, but precisely because, according to Russian calculations, it would prevent the current international order from functioning. This would create an environment of disorder in which Moscow could best maximise its strategic interests. At the same time, it would strengthen the influence in Europe of the ideology the Ukrainian church leader called “the worst of medieval and imperial traditions” — at the expense of the Western democratic political culture that is based on the separation of church and state.