March 19, 2026
By David Kirichenko, and Alexander J. Motyl
The National Interest
Hungary’s prime minister is desperate to deflect attention toward Ukraine and the EU and away from his own loss of public support.
With Hungary’s April 12 elections approaching, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is facing growing political pressure and slipping support in the polls. His response has been to escalate rhetoric against Ukraine while leaning more heavily on Russia. Thus far, the tactic hasn’t worked, as opposition leader Péter Magyar continues to lead in the polls.
Why, then, is Orbán so committed to depicting Ukraine as the source of Hungary’s ills? There are several reasons for Orbán’s seemingly irrational strategy.
First, inasmuch as he has sided with Russian President Vladimir Putin, it makes sense for Orbán to view Putin’s bete noir as his own.
Second, demonizing Ukraine is a convenient way of demonizing Ukraine’s main supporter, the European Union, which Orbán detests, even as he gladly takes the EU economic handouts that have contributed so much to Hungary’s prosperity.
Third, there’s history, which Orbán happily manipulates to present Hungary as the victim of both world wars—despite its being a constituent part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1914–1918 and a collaborationist state in 1938–1945. Since Transcarpathia, which has a sizable Hungarian minority and was given to Hungary by Adolf Hitler in 1938, was then annexed to Soviet Ukraine in 1945, it’s easy for Orban to play the revanchist card, falsely claim that Kyiv discriminates against its Hungarian speakers, and intimate that the region should be a part of Hungary again. Notably, Orban eschews a historical narrative foregrounding the failed 1956 anti-Soviet Hungarian Revolution.
As one Ukrainian political analyst noted, Orbán’s strategy is to frame Ukraine as Hungary’s principal “existential threat” ahead of the election. By accusing Kyiv of trying to drag Hungary into the war, he seeks to trigger basic security anxieties among rural and conservative voters while portraying himself as the country’s only guarantor of peace. In this narrative, the opposition led by Magyar becomes little more than a puppet of Brussels and Ukrainian forces that supposedly want to push Hungary into war.
Orbán began openly threatening to use force against Ukraine over disruptions to Russian oil deliveries through the Druzhba pipeline. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky mocked the threat, remarking that “[the Russians] are killing us, and we’re supposed to give poor little Orbán oil, because without it he won’t win elections.”
Hungarian officials recently claimed that a “delegation” had traveled to Ukraine to investigate the pipeline’s status, only for Kyiv to clarify that the individuals had no official status and had entered the country like ordinary tourists under visa-free travel rules.
At the same time, Hungary has blocked a €90 billion European Union loan package intended to support Ukraine’s war effort. Zelensky responded sharply, warning that if the obstruction continues, he could give the address of the person blocking the aid to Ukraine’s military so they could “speak to him in their own language.” That led to a rare public rebuke by the European Commission against Zelensky.
Relations deteriorated further after Hungarian authorities detained Ukrainian bank employees transporting cash and gold through Hungary, which Kyiv condemned as political pressure. Hungarian infrastructure minister János Lázár later acknowledged that Budapest would hold the funds until Ukraine reopened the Druzhba oil pipeline, effectively confirming that the seizure was being used as leverage in the dispute.
Pro-government media also circulated AI-generated images portraying Ukrainian bank employees detained by Hungarian authorities, which investigators say were amplified online by bot networks linked to Russian disinformation operations.
The anti-Ukraine messaging has been highly visible in Budapest. Some Ukrainian observers have pointed to campaign posters and billboards portraying Zelensky in mocking or antisemitic terms, arguing that the scale and tone of the imagery resemble the kind of propaganda typically associated with Russian information campaigns.
According to reporting by VSquare, European security officials believe the Kremlin has deployed political operatives to help ensure Orbán’s reelection. The effort is reportedly overseen by Sergei Kiriyenko, the Kremlin official responsible for managing Russia’s foreign political influence operations, with a small team linked to the GRU, Russian military intelligence, potentially operating from Russia’s embassy in Budapest.
Opposition leader Magyar has also warned that operatives from Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU, recently entered Hungary ahead of the election. He says the tactic resembles Russian interference operations in Moldova and has called for their immediate expulsion.
Despite Orbán’s anti-Ukrainian messaging, Magyar continues to lead, perhaps because he’s adopted a rhetorical profile that appeals to Orbán’s opponents by criticizing Russia while at the same time opposing Ukraine’s fast-track accession to the EU and thereby appealing to Orbán’s supporters.
The pro-Orbán newspaper Magyar Nemzet unsurprisingly adopted a more critical attitude to Magyar’s attempt to walk a fine line. The paper argues that while most Hungarians oppose Ukraine’s accession to the European Union, Magyar’s allies in Brussels expect him to champion it. As a result, it claims, he has resorted to evasive and sometimes contradictory statements even as he has publicly shown support for Ukraine alongside fellow members of the European Parliament.
Naturally, Orbán and his supporters are hoping to frame the election as being about the EU, Ukraine, and the war. But many Hungarians appear to understand that fast-tracking Ukraine is a non-issue, that the EU is a friend, and that the war is Russia’s doing, not Ukraine’s.
During the campaign, Orbán framed the election as a choice between “peace and war,” arguing that support for Ukraine and alignment with Brussels could drag Hungary into the conflict. His messaging has sought to convince voters that the real threat to Hungary is not economic stagnation but neighboring Ukraine and the policies of the European Union.
In light of Magyar’s likely victory, Orbán would be well advised to cease his anti-Ukrainian rhetoric and adopt a more conciliatory position. Evidently, he cannot, in part, because an about-face would make him look weak and indecisive, thereby undermining his strongman image, and partly because turning toward Ukraine would worsen his relations with Putin.
Barring some act of God, Magyar will defeat Orbán and relegate him to what the communists used to call the “dustbin of history.” Ukraine and Europe will benefit almost as much as Hungary. The only loser will be Putin.
David Kirichenko is an associate research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society. His work on warfare has been featured in publications such as the Atlantic Council, the Center for European Policy Analysis, and the Modern Warfare Institute. Follow him on X: @DVKirichenko.
Alexander J. Motyl is a professor of political science at Rutgers University-Newark. A specialist on Ukraine, Russia, and the USSR, and on nationalism, revolutions, empires, and theory, he is the author of 10 books, including Imperial Ends: The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires and Why Empires Reemerge: Imperial Collapse and Imperial Revival in Comparative Perspective.
