Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has launched another public attack against Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, just hours after disparaging him during an address at the Munich Security Conference.

The Munich gathering honored Zelensky with its annual award for ‘outstanding’ contributions to peace on Saturday. Accepting the Ewald von Kleist Prize, the Ukrainian leader thanked his European sponsors for bankrolling Kiev’s war effort, especially the “biggest donators,” Germany and the UK.

“We are very thankful that we have such partners and friends,” he said, before going after the Hungarian prime minister.

“And I even want to thank Viktor – you all know who I mean – because in his own way, he pushes all of us to be better,” Zelensky said. “Better, so that we are never like him, someone who seems to have forgotten the word ‘shame.’”

EU member states have collectively provided €134 billion ($159 billion) in aid to Kiev since the conflict escalated in February 2022, according to the EU institutions. While giving the award to Zelensky, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Ukraine “deserves something more,” and that even the Nobel Peace Prize would not be “valuable enough.”

The remarks came shortly after Zelensky said that thanks to Ukraine, Orban can focus on “how to grow his belly, not how to grow his army” to counter the perceived ‘Russian threat’.

Orban, a vocal critic of EU support for Kiev, responded on X, saying Zelensky’s comments demonstrate why Ukraine “cannot become a member of the European Union.” He added that the Ukrainian leader’s rhetoric will “greatly help Hungarians see the situation more clearly.”

The Hungarian prime minister has long opposed Ukraine’s push to join the bloc and has repeatedly refused to send weapons or approve EU military aid, calling for diplomacy instead.

In January, Orban called Zelensky “a man in a desperate position,” while stressing that Hungary will continue to supply electricity and fuel and assist Ukrainian refugees despite the dispute.

https://www.rt.com/news/632589-zelensky-orban-shame-munich/

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Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist was the last known surviving plotter of Operation Valkyrie, the 1944 attempted assassination of Adolf Hitler. The plot failed, with dire consequences for Germany and the conspirators, but became celebrated as a heroic episode of anti-Nazi German resistance during the Second World War. "We had to try something," von Kleist recalled in 2004. "The things being done by those criminals in Germany's name were simply appalling."

Von Kleist was born into an aristocratic Prussian family that had sired a lengthy line of cultural, diplomatic and military leaders. His birthplace was the family seat at Schmenzin in the province of Pomerania, East Prussia. His father was Ewald von Kleist-Schmenzin, a lawyer and large-scale landowner who had an ambivalent attitude to the pre-Hitler Weimar republic.

As a conservative he preached the idea of monarchy and Christian ideals. He supported the German National People's Party, which opposed women's rights, was anti-Jewish and which formed part of the coalition with the Nazis in 1933. Yet he ended up being arrested and held briefly in May, and again in June of that year. The so-called "Night of Long Knives" in June 1934, when Hitler moved against his own brown-shirted SA and its leader Ernst Röhm, as well as other critics of his regime, strengthened the von Kleist family's conviction that Hitler was the wrong man to lead Germany: "It was absolutely clear that the state had become a murderer," von Kleist recalled years later.

Amid growing European tension, in 1938 Ewald Snr was sent to London by the military intelligence chief, Admiral Canaris, and General Beck – who became one of the leading figures in the assassination plot – with a mission to make the British government aware of the resistance to Hitler and to persuade it to abandon appeasement. If the British were seen to be willing to use force, the opposition in Germany would have the support that it needed among Germany's High Command to move against the Führer. Sadly, his mission failed.

In 1940, at 18, Ewald-Heinrich joined the Wehrmacht as an infantry officer. He was wounded on the Eastern Front early in 1944. Recuperating, he received a telegram recalling him to his unit. He assumed he would be required to resume his duties, but when he arrived, he received an unexpected request: to carry out a suicide mission to assassinate the Führer. The telegram had come from Colonel Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg, leader of the planned coup.

Von Kleist asked for 24 hours to think it over. Like his father he had never had any love for Hitler. He had been initiated into the plotters' circle by fellow officer Graf von der Schulenburg, who was close to Stauffenberg.

After a discussion with his father, he agreed to the mission. Kleist and his men were scheduled to show Hitler new uniforms that had been tested at the front. He planned to set off explosives hidden in his briefcase. He believed that he might have been able to escape alive, even if the briefcase exploded in his hands. But like earlier attempts, the plan was abandoned, as Hitler put off the scheduled uniform demonstration.

When that plot failed, Operation Valkyrie was embarked upon. This was the attempt on 20 July 1944 to assassinate Hitler by detonating a bomb-laden briefcase left by Stauffenberg at Hitler's eastern headquarters. The bomb went off but failed to kill Hitler. Ewald-Heinrich was carrying out various tasks at the plotters' HQ, tasked once Hitler was dead with overseeing the arrest of officers and officials loyal to him in the city.

His father was among those arrested the next day. He was convicted at the notorious "People's Court" and guillotined at Plötzensee Prison in Berlin on 9 April 1945. Ewald-Heinrich was also arrested and questioned by the Gestapo – he survived the interrogation, he said, by playing "the role of being young and stupid and unpolitical." He spent four months in Ravensbrück concentration camp but, remarkably, the case against him was dropped for lack of evidence.

With the help of a higher officer he was sent to Italy on a fictitious secret mission. Just before the end of hostilities he led his unit against the advancing Americans and was taken prisoner. In March 1945 Schmenzin surrendered to the Red Army; the inhabitants were expelled and the village became part of Poland.

After the war von Kleist made his home in Munich, where he went into publishing. In 1952 he founded the independent the Society for Military Studies, and the European Military Studies magazine in 1954.

In 1962 he established the annual Munich Security Conference on international security policy, which he led until 1998. Backed by BMW, the defence company Krauss-Maffei Wegmann, Barclays and other concerns, in 2013 it attracted the US vice-president Joe Biden, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergej Lawrow, Nato General Secretary Anders Fogh

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About Ewald von Kleist [AWARD]

Ewald von Kleist was the founder and defining personality of the Munich Security Conference. As its patron for over 30 years, Kleist was instrumental in advancing the transatlantic security dialogue and introducing post-war Germany into NATO and the broader Cold War security order. Kleist, a prolific author, jurist, and publisher, founded the "Internationale Wehrkunde" conference in 1963 to overcome what he viewed as a "lack of experts on nuclear matters" as well as to enhance German legislators' understanding of American security policy. 

Kleist was noted for his expertise on the role of nuclear weapons in NATO's defense posture and Europe’s role in the transatlantic partnership – issues that confronted NATO and "Wehrkunde" throughout and after the Cold War. Until his death in 2013, Kleist remained active in security affairs and a regular participant of the MSC, a reflection of his devotion to "Wehrkunde" and the issues to which he had dedicated his life. His legacy will continue to inspire leaders and practitioners from around the world.

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Aiming to honor leading figures in security policy that have made an outstanding contribution to international peace and conflict management, the MSC inaugurated the Ewald von Kleist Award in 2009. We are honoured that outstanding statesmen and -women and practitioners of security policy, most of which have been conference speakers and participants for many years, have accepted the award.

2025
Kaja Kallas — [WARMONGER]

2024
Mia Amor Mottley and John F. Kerry

2023
Finland and Sweden — [WARMONGERS]

2022
Jens Stoltenberg — [WARMONGER]

2021
Angela Merkel — [MINSK AGREEMENT DECEIVER]

2020
United Nations [?]

2019
Alexis Tsipras and Zoran Zaev

2018
John McCain — [WARMONGER]

2017
Joachim Gauck

2016
Christiana Figueres and Laurent Fabius

2015
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) — [DECEITFUL]

2014
Helmut Schmidt und Valéry Giscard d'Estaing 

2013
Brent Scowcroft

2012
Joseph Lieberman — [ANTI-ASSANGE]

2010
Javier Solana

2009
Henry Kissinger — [WARMONGER]

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About John McCain

Senator John McCain was a companion, partner and friend of the Munich Security Conference for more than four decades. After first attending the conference as a young Navy officer, he eventually came to lead the United States Congressional Delegation to the conference in his role as senator for more than 20 years. As such he played a key role in establishing the conference as an important forum for the transatlantic community. "No one defended the transatlantic alliance at its best – nor confronted it at its worst – more vigorously than him", commemorates MSC Chairman Wolfgang Ischinger.

In times when the transatlantic bond can no longer be taken for granted, we have decided to create the annual John McCain Dissertation Award for academic excellence. Together with our partners, the Hochschule für Politik München/TUM School of Governance, the Geschwister-Scholl-Institute for Political Science at LMU Munich, the University of the Federal Armed Forces, as well as the McCain Institute, we strive to honour the legacy of John McCain.

I am counting on you to be brave. I am counting on you to be useful. I am counting on you to keep the faith, and never give up […] Never, ever stop fighting for all that is good, and just, and decent about our world and each other.

John McCain•Ewald von Kleist Award Winner 2018

The Award

The John McCain Dissertation Award is awarded annually to up to two outstanding doctoral dissertations dealing with an aspect of transatlantic relations. It consists of several components, including participation in Munich Security Conference events and activities, and a prize sum of up to 10,000 euros.

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