Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attack on Ukraine has made the West — in this context, NATO and the European Union — more united than it’s been in a long time. Unfortunately, that cohesion is now at risk, as the Russian invasion turns into a grinding war of attrition. To deter Putin from escalating and to keep him from winning, Western leaders must focus on the two weakest links in their alliance: Turkey and Hungary.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the president of Turkey — a member of NATO but not the EU — says he will block the accession of Sweden and Finland to the transatlantic alliance unless he’s given a series of unrelated concessions. If he actually follows through, he would not only leave both countries more vulnerable to Russian aggression, but also render NATO weaker than it should be in defending its Baltic members. Gratuitously, Erdogan is also increasing tensions with Greece, another NATO ally.
Then there’s Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. For weeks, he’s been holding up a sanctions package that would embargo Russian oil. EU leaders last week thought they had finally reached a compromise: Only Russian oil delivered by ship would be banned, whereas the sort arriving via pipelines would not. That would give landlocked Hungary, as well as the Czech Republic and Slovakia, more time to adjust their energy infrastructure.
