It's indeed backfiring.

However, Poland and Hungary are on a dangerous path towards authoritarian regimes.

Hungary's government is Putin's puppet. It's Prime Minister agreed to pay Russian's oil and gas in roubles. No help to Ukrainians can transit through or fly over the country. Its Foreign Affairs network was wide open to the FSB, meaning the Russians had access to secret OTAN's plans etc. The opposition had exactly 5 minutes on TV during the recent political campaign leading to Orban's reelection.

The EU should exclude Hungary. They don't belong anymore. Some say it's not helping but Putin's invasion of Ukraine has proved that democracies should not mitigate.

The Hungarian people needs to understand what a true democracy is. It is NOT the rule of the majority of the minority.

Poland has gone to the far-right as well. Restriction of abortion, anti-LGBT laws, official History of the country dictated by the government to historians. And today a clearly antisemitic law was voted.

Poland is siding strongly with Ukraine, but that doesn't make right their antidemocratic policies.

I'm French (and American) and I want the EU to be a protection from authoritarian regimes.

Within a fortnight, we could have in France a far-right president. President Macron has been pursuing its neoliberal policies, e.g. making the poor poorer, the rich richer and the middle class thinner. The left has paved the way to the far-right, divided by egos (6 candidates from the left aisle).

Like Orban, Marine Le Pen admires Putin. A Russian banked loaned her 12 millions euros for her 2017 campaign, never reimbursed. Macron has received 5 millions euros from unknown sources - likely his billionaire friends.

Macron also blindly supported police violence against demonstrators. The UN even summoned France for it (Macron just said he didn't care).

Macron pretends to be the intermediary for peace between Ukraine and Russia. But Ukraine needs weapons, not a self-proclaimed peace negotiator.

Ukraine and Poland complains than France could do much more. I'm afraid (and ashamed) that they are right. France is the first foreign investor in Russia. Macron cares for his billionaire friends' investments in Russia.

He's a "realist". It's funny to watch that policies driven by "realism" is always beneficial to the rich. If you don't serve the rich, you are an "idealist".

Don't trust Macron, Ukrainian friends and admirable people. And be ready for France changing side if Le Pen is elected.

More than 60% percent of the police in France vote far the far-right, as well as the armies. This means that a far-right president in France would have a much wider power than Trump had + the armed forces sharing her views (racism, disregard for democracy, limiting the liberty of the press and media, ...).

Democracy in France is on the verge of collapsing.

In the US, Trump's coup was blocked by a very small number of Republican officials loyal to the Constitution. But Trump is clearly on its way back to power, since the Democratic party failed to serve the interests of 80% of the nation. Exactly like many social-democratic parties in Europe.

Biden is a centrist. In all cases, he has not a large enough majority in Congress to even being able to setup centrist policies. He thinks that centrism is the path to reunite the nation. It's not. The nation is mainly the 90% that barely makes the end meets despite working hard. Then there are the 9% working hard to make the 1% and the 0.1% richer than ever.

The 9% consider this system as a "meritocracy". It's not. It's a plutocracy, the government by the rich. Nancy Pelosi's net worth is above 100 million dollars. That says it all.

Welcome to the West, Ukraine! Yes, it's much better than Putin's kleptocracy.

But the West doesn't mean "the democracies" anymore. Not with Hungary and Poland. France & the USA? We'll see soon enough.