Hungary's Russia-friendly prime minister attacks the EU in nationalist speech

Hungary's populist prime minister on Saturday vowed to rid his country of those he claims work for the interests of foreign powers, saying his right-wing government will eliminate a global “shadow army” serving the European Union and a “liberal American empire.”

In a conspiracy theory-laden address, which coincided with a national holiday commemorating Hungary’s 1848 revolution against Habsburg rule, Viktor Orbán told a group of several thousand select supporters that Hungary in the coming weeks will uproot media outlets and other organisations that have received funding from abroad, comparing such groups to insects.

“After today’s festive gathering comes the Easter cleaning. The bugs have overwintered," Orbán said. “We will dismantle the financial machine that has used corrupt dollars to buy politicians, judges, journalists, pseudo-NGOs and political activists. We will eliminate the entire shadow army.”

Orbán, in power since 2010, has used the March 15 celebration in recent years as a podium from which to launch increasingly hostile harangues against the EU.

"There is always an empire that is trying to take away the freedom of the Hungarians, and right now it is the one in Brussels. Brussels is abusing its power, just as Vienna did in the past. They want to rule over us, just as the governors of the Viennese court did in the past," he claimed.

Hungary and Austria were the two states that formed the Habsburg empire which ruled much of central Europe between 1867 and 1918.

Orbán said that one task remained, to defend Hungary against Brussels' attacks. "Brussels" has, he claimed, "jumped headlong into the Russian-Ukrainian war".

"We did not jump into the war with Brussels, the Empire does not want to help, but to colonise,