Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said the "masters of Europe" have decided that Ukraine must continue the war no matter the costs, "and in exchange, it will receive quick EU membership at our expense."
During a speech marking the March 15 national holiday, the prime minister added: "We only have one answer to that: the Union but without Ukraine."
Speaking in front of the National Museum marking the 177th anniversary of the 1848-49 revolution and freedom fight on Saturday, PM Orbán said Hungarians would have the opportunity to voice their opinion on Ukraine's European Union aspirations. "There is no European decision without Hungary," he said.
"A year ago, the question was whether we wanted to die for Ukraine. Now it is whether we want to be bankrupted by its accession," PM Orbán said, urging "dear friends" to respond to the government's public survey on the question.
Quoting Ferenc Deak, the justice minister of the first Hungarian government during the freedom fight, PM Orbán said: "We may risk everything for the homeland but we must not risk the homeland for anything."
"Europe jumped head-first into the Russia-Ukraine war," PM Orbán said.
"We must not cause greater harm than what we want to prevent, and we cannot help anyone if we ruin our own homeland. So we did not jump in with them but stayed on the side of peace," he said.
PM Orbán said the "empire" wanted to colonize Ukraine rather than helping it. "War is a tool of colonization," he added.
Regarding the 1848 revolution, PM Orbán said: "The idea of Hungarian freedom is timeless and eternal."
The prime minister said that 177 years ago this day, the ideal of Hungarian freedom "took shape, was embodied and came to walk among us; March 15 remains a special day for all generations of Hungarians…"
PM Orbán said: "In 1848, they said the future belonged to the shining empire in Vienna; in 1956 they said that the future belonged to the red Soviet empire; and now they're saying that the future belongs to the rainbow-coloured worldwide empire."
"But there was a turnabout across the [Atlantic], and it turns out that we are the future; that the future does not belong to empires but to patriots and independent nations," PM Orbán said.
"It has also been said that we're isolated," PM Orbán said. "They said that in 1848, too. Then, the whole of Europe was abuzz with Hungarians, even the revolutionary forces in Vienna were led by a citizen of Buda."
"They said the same thing in 1956, then Hungary was the first to knock a brick out of the Berlin wall, which brought freedom for the whole of Europe."
"They are saying now that we are isolated, and yet now, everyone is curious about us," he said.
PM Orbán said freedom was the "natural element" of Hungarians. "Hungarians are in their element when fighting for their freedom. We are freedom fighters: we know how to obtain and preserve freedom," he said.
"This knowledge is ours, we have been amassing it for a thousand years … this is what the world needs now more than ever," he added.
Recently, "we have stayed on our feet in the face of a world empire… We have the secret, the alchemy of the modern era. That is why half the world is coming to us, from Vienna to Washington," PM Orbán said.
"Our fight for freedom, like in 1848, is not just a matter for Hungarians," he said. "Today's fight is in fact for the soul of the Western world."