{"id":199457,"date":"2025-06-20T09:04:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-20T09:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/199457\/"},"modified":"2025-06-20T09:04:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-20T09:04:10","slug":"orbans-anti-ukraine-campaign-escalates-ahead-of-elections-in-hungary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/199457\/","title":{"rendered":"Orb\u00e1n’s anti-Ukraine campaign escalates ahead of elections in Hungary"},"content":{"rendered":"

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) \u2014 As Hungary heads toward national elections next spring and the populist government\u2019s popularity slumps, Prime Minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n<\/a> has zeroed in on a central theme he hopes will sway voters: an alleged threat posed by neighboring Ukraine.<\/p>\n

While most European Union countries have offered political, financial, and military support to Kyiv since Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion<\/a> in 2022, Hungary under Orb\u00e1n has charted a starkly different course<\/a> \u2014 refusing to supply Ukraine with weapons or allow their transit through Hungarian territory, demanding sanctions relief and rapprochement with Russia, and adopting a combative stance<\/a> toward both Kyiv and its EU backers.<\/p>\n

With his ruling Fidesz party slipping in the polls and a new opposition force gaining momentum, Orb\u00e1n has escalated a sweeping anti-Ukraine campaign<\/a> \u2014 presenting the upcoming election as a referendum on peace or war. Going further, he has accused his leading political opponent of entering into a treasonous pact with Kyiv to overthrow his government and install a pro-Western, pro-Ukraine administration. <\/p>\n

Orb\u00e1n opposes Ukraine\u2019s accession to the EU<\/p>\n

Some of his ideas mirror the growing anti-Ukraine messaging coming from right-wing populists in the West, including from President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s be under no illusions: Brussels and Ukraine are jointly building up a puppet government (in Hungary),\u201d Orb\u00e1n said on June 6 in comments to state radio. \u201cThey want to change Hungary\u2019s policy toward Ukraine after the next elections, or even sooner.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the heart of Orb\u00e1n\u2019s claims is Ukraine\u2019s ambition to join the EU, something Kyiv believes would place it firmly within the embrace of the West and provide a measure of security against potential Russian attacks in the future. <\/p>\n

While Orb\u00e1n was a firm supporter of Ukraine\u2019s eventual EU accession shortly after Russia launched its full-scale invasion, he now argues that its membership \u2014 which will likely take many years \u2014 would flood Hungary with crime, cheap labor, and low-quality agricultural products, threatening national sovereignty and economic stability. <\/p>\n

He has also spuriously claimed that Brussels and Kyiv intend to force Hungarians to fight Russia on the front lines. On Monday, Orb\u00e1n posted a video to his social media page depicting animated, artificial intelligence-generated scenes of bloodied, machine-gun wielding Hungarian soldiers engaged in armed conflict, and rows of caskets lined beneath Hungarian flags. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want our children, in the form of the Hungarian army, to be deployed to the Ukrainian front lines or to Ukrainian territory and to come back in coffins,\u201d he said in the video. <\/p>\n

Campaign targets the main opposition leader<\/p>\n

Central to Orb\u00e1n\u2019s life-or-death narrative of the Hungarian election is his growing campaign against his main political rival, P\u00e9ter Magyar, a former Fidesz insider whose new Tisza party has surged in popularity. <\/p>\n

Once married to Hungary\u2019s former justice minister, Magyar has become the most formidable challenger<\/a> to Orb\u00e1n\u2019s rule since the EU\u2019s longest-serving leader took office in 2010. With Tisza leading Fidesz in most independent polls, some analysts and domestic critics believe Orb\u00e1n may be laying the groundwork to discredit or even disqualify Magyar ahead of the 2026 election.<\/p>\n

P\u00e9ter Krek\u00f3, director of the Budapest-based Political Capital think tank, said Orb\u00e1n\u2019s attempt to link Magyar and Tisza to the image of a dangerous Ukraine is aimed at neutralizing his domestic opposition as popular sentiment<\/a> appears to be turning against him. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere is an ongoing campaign against any critical voices in Hungary saying that they are agents of Ukraine, and this can be used also against the Tisza party,\u201d he told The Associated Press. \u201cIf you can\u2019t win back public opinion anymore, then you can try to use a more authoritarian toolkit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beyond political rhetoric, such accusations have reached the highest levels of diplomacy. In May, Ukraine\u2019s main security agency said that it had arrested two people on suspicion of spying for Hungary<\/a> by gathering intelligence on Ukraine\u2019s military defenses in the west of the country. That set off a tit-for-tat series of diplomatic expulsions, and accusations from Hungary\u2019s government that the affair was part of a concerted Ukrainian campaign involving Magyar and his party to undermine Orb\u00e1n.<\/p>\n

The prime minister accused Magyar and Tisza of being \u201cpro-Ukrainian\u201d and supporting Ukraine\u2019s EU bid, and alleging that a prominent Tisza member, the former chief of staff of the Hungarian military, has \u201cdeep ties with Ukrainian intelligence.\u201d No evidence has been provided to support the claims, which Magyar has dismissed outright.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is outrageous and blood-boiling when a patriot who trained and prepared to be a soldier since the age of 14 and who took a military oath … is accused of treason by people who would sell their country out,\u201d Magyar told a news conference on June 5. <\/p>\n

Ukraine pushes back<\/p>\n

To reinforce its message, the Hungarian government launched a state-funded communication blitz<\/a> in March, accompanied by a non-binding \u201cnational consultation\u201d on Ukraine\u2019s EU membership. Billboards, television ads, and social media posts have flooded the country, portraying Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen as the architects of a plot to undermine, or even destroy Hungary.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey would bring Ukraine into the EU, but we would pay the price!\u201d reads one poster. \u201cLet\u2019s vote no!\u201d<\/p>\n

Ukrainian officials have been restrained in reacting to the Hungarian campaign. But in an interview published last week in Hungarian outlet V\u00e1lasz Online, Zelenskyy criticized the government\u2019s use of his face as part of its media barrage, and accused Orb\u00e1n of being \u201canti-Ukrainian and anti-European.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is using this in his domestic policy: he wants to turn the war in Ukraine to his own advantage in the elections. That is dishonest,\u201d Zelenskyy said. <\/p>\n

In a post on X on Tuesday, Ukraine\u2019s foreign ministry also pushed back on Hungary\u2019s accusations. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Hungarian government\u2019s communication line, which demonizes Ukraine and President Zelenskyy, has gone off the rails,\u201d the ministry\u2019s spokesman, Heorhii Tykhyi, wrote. \u201cWe don\u2019t see Hungary demanding that Russia accept a ceasefire … They remain silent when principled action is needed and make baseless accusations when diplomacy is required.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) \u2014 As Hungary heads toward national elections next spring and the populist government\u2019s popularity slumps,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":199458,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[80743,32,33,2002,2000,299,1699,4179,5212,2190,10693,8615,8617,285,7661,80742,657,7662,1220,1781,26199,263],"class_list":{"0":"post-199457","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-anthony-rush","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-elections","11":"tag-espionage","12":"tag-eu","13":"tag-europe","14":"tag-european-union","15":"tag-general-news","16":"tag-government-policy","17":"tag-hungary","18":"tag-hungary-government","19":"tag-international-news","20":"tag-military-and-defense","21":"tag-politics","22":"tag-russia-ukraine-war","23":"tag-shareef-miller","24":"tag-ukraine","25":"tag-ukraine-government","26":"tag-ursula-von-der-leyen","27":"tag-viktor-orban","28":"tag-voting","29":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114714893867148606","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}