I want to take you behind the scenes to my own reporting and go back to an incident from March of 2022.

Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine was two weeks old. I was on my way to Ukraine. There were,

and still are, no flights into Ukraine,

so I flew into Budapest, the capital of Hungary. And there I bore witness, often live on air,

to the tens of thousands of Ukrainian refugees arriving exclusively by train, mainly women and

children, escaping the war with just the possessions that they could carry. Most of them

could not speak Hungarian, which has virtually no overlap with Ukrainian language or with Russian.

They had no idea where they would go to or what they needed to do next. They were greeted by the

Hungarian people who were there to help in any way they could, to offer guidance, a place to stay,

a meal, medical and humanitarian aid, a kind word.

My reporting on Hungary was based on the facts, on what I was learning and seeing play out

firsthand and the important context that was needed to explain the story. And at times, I noted

that while Hungary and the Hungarian people were helping their neighbors who were under attack

by Russia, Hungary's longtime leader, Victor Orban, maintained a close relationship with Russia's leader, Vladimir Putin.

And despite being a member of NATO, Hungary joined in 1999 during Orban's first stint as prime minister,

Hungary had developed a closer, friendlier relationship with Russia during Orban 2.0.

Orban had been serving as prime minister since 2010. He had previously held the position from

1998 through 2002. During my reporting in Budapest, I noted that under Orban's long rule, Hungary

had seen a significant backsliding of democracy and of democratic institutions, including

a crackdown on rights, an increase in corruption, an increase in extreme anti-immigration policy,

a weakening of the independent judiciary, and the near elimination of the independent press,

including the creation of a state-run media. Now, I am not a scholar of Hungary, and what I was reporting was not some grand secret.

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