But with his closest ally in Europe now out of power, and Peter Magyar, the new leader, looking to realign Hungary with the EU and Nato<\/a>, missiles flew more than 1,000 miles into Ukraine and landed just 12 miles from the Hungarian border.<\/p>\n Mukachevo, the regional capital of Zakarpattia, was hit, while Hungarian railway workers at Chop station were evacuated to shelters and later bundled into Hungary<\/a>.<\/p>\n The message from Moscow could not have been clearer.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a warning shot at the new government,\u201d P\u00e9ter Krek\u00f3, the director of the Political Capital Institute, a Budapest-based think tank, told The Telegraph.<\/p>\n \u201cOrban\u2019s approach was unconditionally pro-Russian: whatever helped Ukraine, Hungary opposed it. Moscow doesn\u2019t want this to change.\u201d<\/p>\n Russia launched more than 800 drones across Ukraine on May 13 in one of the longest mass attacks of the war, targeting critical infrastructure from Kyiv to the far west.<\/p>\n For the first time since the invasion began, that barrage reached Zakarpattia, the region farthest from Russian territory, hitting multiple districts in what the regional governor described as the heaviest assault the area had seen since 2022.<\/p>\n Zakarpattia borders Hungary, Slovakia and Romania. Once home to 150,000 ethnic Hungarians, the number has dropped since the start of the war, but it remains culturally and politically distinct from the rest of the country.<\/p>\n It had been a point of tension between Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, and Mr Orb\u00e1n for years.<\/p>\n Mr Orb\u00e1n repeatedly used the Hungarian population as leverage against Kyiv, blocking Ukraine\u2019s EU accession talks and vetoing military aid packages because of what Budapest claimed were violations of the community\u2019s language and education rights.<\/p>\n Mr Orb\u00e1n and Putin, pictured in 2025, had long been firm allies – ALEXANDER NEMENOV\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n The tactics turned the grievances of a minority population into a political weapon<\/a> that served Moscow\u2019s interests as much as Budapest\u2019s.<\/p>\n According to experts, Moscow left Zakarpattia untouched from the first day of the invasion as part of an arrangement never formalised but widely understood as part of the tacit agreement between Mr Orb\u00e1n and Putin that defined four years of Hungarian foreign policy.<\/p>\n \u201cThe attack was the end of the Orb\u00e1n-Putin understanding<\/a> over protecting ethnic Hungarians in the area,\u201d said Mujtaba Rahman, managing director, Europe, at Eurasia Group.<\/p>\n P\u00e9ter Szijj\u00e1rt\u00f3, Hungary\u2019s outgoing foreign minister, was one of Moscow\u2019s most useful allies in Europe. His leaked phone calls revealed that he once told Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, \u201cI am always at your service.\u201d<\/p>\n In the weeks before he left office, he gave his most candid comments yet on why Zakarpattia had been spared, telling Hungarian media that it was \u201cprobably not a coincidence\u201d.<\/p>\n That all changed in April, when Mr Orb\u00e1n lost power in a landslide<\/a> to Peter Magyar, a 45-year-old lawyer who had promised to end Hungary\u2019s isolation from its European allies and move the country away from Moscow\u2019s orbit.<\/p>\n \u201cLosing Orb\u00e1n as an ally in Europe was a notable setback for Moscow, both politically and pragmatically,\u201d said Mr Rahman.<\/p>\n Mr Magyar\u2019s government was formalised on May 12, with Russian Shahed drones hitting Zakarpattia on May 13.<\/p>\n Within hours, Mr Magyar summoned the Russian ambassador, the first time any Hungarian government had taken such a step in response to an attack on Ukrainian soil in the four years since the invasion began.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is a real break with the previous approach,\u201d said Mr Krek\u00f3. \u201cThe line of the Orb\u00e1n government was that it kept criticising Ukraine and criticising Brussels for being too hawkish, but it did not criticise Russia for this kind of behaviour. And that now seems to be changing quite clearly.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr Krek\u00f3 added that the strikes on Zakarpattia were Moscow\u2019s way of signalling to Hungarians that their new government could not defend its interests abroad, warning that Hungary should now brace for what its neighbours have long endured.<\/p>\n \u201cHungary may now start experiencing some of the things that other Nato members in the region have already experienced in recent years,\u201d said Mr Krek\u00f3. \u201cHybrid threats, destabilisation attempts, and similar forms of pressure coming from Russia.\u201d<\/p>\n He said Russia\u2019s miscalculation may send a message to other pro-Moscow governments in the region that \u201cbuilding their political future\u201d around friendship with Putin was \u201cnot a stable foundation\u201d.<\/p>\n There is an irony Moscow may not have intended.<\/p>\n The strike that was meant to destabilise Mr Magyar\u2019s government has instead given it something Mr Orb\u00e1n never had: a reason to stand with Ukraine.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Russian strike could actually help lower the tension between Hungary and Ukraine<\/a>\u201d, said Mr Rahman, \u201call while raising the temperature with Moscow.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Mr](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/4951020070000d38582f08b197034bc6.jpeg\"\/)
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