In his interview, the prime minister said one event “pointing towards a drift into war was the start of negotiations on sending French training officers to Ukraine. An even more worrying development, he added, was that an increasing number of players, including NATO’s Secretary-General, had said that besides self-defence, Ukraine had the right to use Western-donated weapons to attack Russia. “The Russians have already announced they consider NATO to have a hand in the damage done on Russian soil,” as Ukraine would be unable to inflict it without NATO’s help. Russia had made clear its troops would advance until it had secured an area broad enough to make it impossible for Ukrainian forces to fire “into Russia’s old territory”, he said. “We must realise that supporting Ukraine in firing at Russia bears the risk of bringing Russian forces closer to us.” Orbán said the drifting into the war had occurred in three phases: “talks, preparation and destruction”. “We’ve moved past talks, what we’re analysing now is the matter of preparation, which puts us centimetres from actual destruction,” he said.