Viktor Orban says he has won Hungary’s election, and criticises Ukraine’s president in his speech.
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Viktor Orbán expected to win big majority in Hungarian general election
Rightwinger and Putin ally heading for fourth term with only slightly fewer seats despite failure to condemn invasion of Ukraine
Viktor Orbán’s rightwing nationalist government was seeking a fourth consecutive term in a Sunday general election, with unofficial polls suggesting it could be on course for a decisive victory in Hungary in a vote dominated by rows over the war in neighbouring Ukraine.
Shortly after polls closed at 7pm local time, a projection by RTL, a private Hungarian television station close to the ruling Fidesz party, predicted the government would win 121 of the seats in the 199-member parliament. A six-party opposition bloc, United for Hungary, which had come together in a singular effort to unseat Orbán – who has held power for 12 years – was predicted to win 77 seats.
How alleged atrocities in Bucha compare to previous Putin campaigns
Analysis: Russian president appears to have operated by a strict playbook in northern Ukraine that has served him well for decades
Russia-Ukraine war: latest updates
As horrifying images and testimony have emerged from Bucha, the Ukrainian town 35 miles north-west of the capital, Kyiv, it is becoming ever more likely that Vladimir Putin has operated by a strict playbook in the north of Ukraine as with elsewhere in the country that has served him well for decades, albeit at a heavy cost to his army.
First, there are the initial errors, including the underestimation of the enemy. Putin’s attack on the Chechen capital, Grozny, in 1999, was as unsuccessful as the attempt to decapitate Ukraine’s leadership in Kyiv within a few days of his 24 February invasion.
‘All wars are like this’: rape used as a weapon of war in Ukraine
Women and girls have recounted the abuse they have suffered at the hands of Russian soldiers
Russia-Ukraine war: latest updates
Women across Ukraine are grappling with the threat of rape as a weapon of war as growing evidence of sexual violence emerges from areas retaken from retreating Russian forces.
The world was horrified on Sunday by a picture taken by the photographer Mikhail Palinchak on a highway 20km outside the capital, Kyiv, in which the body of one man and three women were piled under a blanket. The women were naked and their bodies had been partially burned, the photographer said.
The Guardian view on the Russian Orthodox Church: betrayed by Putin’s patriarch | Editorial
Patriarch Kirill of Moscow has given theological cover for Vladimir Putin’s murderous assault on Ukraine
In 1934, as Adolf Hitler consolidated his grip on power in Germany, a courageous group of Protestant pastors resisted attempts to create a pro-Nazi unified Reich Church. In what became known as the Barmen Declaration, they asserted the absolute separation of church and state, rejecting the “false doctrine” that “the church in human arrogance could place the Word and work of the Lord in the service of any arbitrarily chosen desires, purposes, and plans”.
It is a measure of these disturbing times that last month hundreds of Orthodox Christian clergy, scholars and lay people felt the need to issue a similar declaration, excoriating the complicity of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) in Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Their document, entitled A Declaration on the “Russian World” Teaching, condemns Patriarch Kirill of Moscow for providing theological cover for a barbarous and illegal war.