BUDAPEST, Hungary — As Hungary heads towards nationwide elections subsequent spring and the populist authorities’s reputation slumps, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has zeroed in on a central theme he hopes will sway voters: an alleged menace posed by neighboring Ukraine.
Whereas most European Union international locations have supplied political, monetary, and army assist to Kyiv since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, Hungary below Orbán has charted a starkly different course — refusing to produce Ukraine with weapons or permit their transit by Hungarian territory, demanding sanctions aid and rapprochement with Russia, and adopting a combative stance towards each Kyiv and its EU backers.
Together with his ruling Fidesz get together slipping within the polls and a brand new opposition drive gaining momentum, Orbán has escalated a sweeping anti-Ukraine campaign — presenting the upcoming election as a referendum on peace or conflict. Going additional, he has accused his main political opponent of coming into right into a treasonous pact with Kyiv to overthrow his authorities and set up a pro-Western, pro-Ukraine administration.
A few of his concepts mirror the rising anti-Ukraine messaging coming from right-wing populists within the West, together with from President Donald Trump.
“Let’s be below no illusions: Brussels and Ukraine are collectively increase a puppet authorities (in Hungary),” Orbán stated on June 6 in feedback to state radio. “They wish to change Hungary’s coverage towards Ukraine after the following elections, and even sooner.”
On the coronary heart of Orbán’s claims is Ukraine’s ambition to affix the EU, one thing Kyiv believes would place it firmly inside the embrace of the West and supply a measure of safety towards potential Russian assaults sooner or later.
Whereas Orbán was a agency supporter of Ukraine’s eventual EU accession shortly after Russia launched its full-scale invasion, he now argues that its membership — which can doubtless take a few years — would flood Hungary with crime, low-cost labor, and low-quality agricultural merchandise, threatening nationwide sovereignty and financial stability.
He has additionally spuriously claimed that Brussels and Kyiv intend to drive Hungarians to battle Russia on the entrance strains. On Monday, Orbán posted a video to his social media web page depicting animated, synthetic intelligence-generated scenes of bloodied, machine-gun wielding Hungarian troopers engaged in armed battle, and rows of caskets lined beneath Hungarian flags.
“We do not need our youngsters, within the type of the Hungarian military, to be deployed to the Ukrainian entrance strains or to Ukrainian territory and to return again in coffins,” he stated within the video.
Central to Orbán’s life-or-death narrative of the Hungarian election is his rising marketing campaign towards his fundamental political rival, Péter Magyar, a former Fidesz insider whose new Tisza get together has surged in reputation.
As soon as married to Hungary’s former justice minister, Magyar has become the most formidable challenger to Orbán’s rule for the reason that EU’s longest-serving chief took workplace in 2010. With Tisza main Fidesz in most unbiased polls, some analysts and home critics imagine Orbán could also be laying the groundwork to discredit and even disqualify Magyar forward of the 2026 election.
Péter Krekó, director of the Budapest-based Political Capital suppose tank, stated Orbán’s try to hyperlink Magyar and Tisza to the picture of a harmful Ukraine is geared toward neutralizing his home opposition as popular sentiment seems to be turning towards him.
“There’s an ongoing marketing campaign towards any important voices in Hungary saying that they’re brokers of Ukraine, and this can be utilized additionally towards the Tisza get together,” he instructed The Related Press. “When you can’t win again public opinion anymore, then you possibly can attempt to use a extra authoritarian toolkit.”
Past political rhetoric, such accusations have reached the best ranges of diplomacy. In Could, Ukraine’s fundamental safety company stated that it had arrested two people on suspicion of spying for Hungary by gathering intelligence on Ukraine’s army defenses within the west of the nation. That set off a tit-for-tat sequence of diplomatic expulsions, and accusations from Hungary’s authorities that the affair was a part of a concerted Ukrainian marketing campaign involving Magyar and his get together to undermine Orbán.
The prime minister accused Magyar and Tisza of being “pro-Ukrainian” and supporting Ukraine’s EU bid, and alleging {that a} distinguished Tisza member, the previous chief of employees of the Hungarian army, has “deep ties with Ukrainian intelligence.” No proof has been supplied to assist the claims, which Magyar has dismissed outright.
“It’s outrageous and blood-boiling when a patriot who skilled and ready to be a soldier for the reason that age of 14 and who took a army oath … is accused of treason by individuals who would promote their nation out,” Magyar instructed a information convention on June 5.
To strengthen its message, the Hungarian authorities launched a state-funded communication blitz in March, accompanied by a non-binding “nationwide session” on Ukraine’s EU membership. Billboards, tv advertisements, and social media posts have flooded the nation, portraying Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European Fee President Ursula von der Leyen because the architects of a plot to undermine, and even destroy Hungary.
“They’d deliver Ukraine into the EU, however we might pay the value!” reads one poster. “Let’s vote no!”
Ukrainian officers have been restrained in reacting to the Hungarian marketing campaign. However in an interview printed final week in Hungarian outlet Válasz On-line, Zelenskyy criticized the federal government’s use of his face as a part of its media barrage, and accused Orbán of being “anti-Ukrainian and anti-European.”
“He’s utilizing this in his home coverage: he desires to show the conflict in Ukraine to his personal benefit within the elections. That’s dishonest,” Zelenskyy stated.
In a put up on X on Tuesday, Ukraine’s international ministry additionally pushed again on Hungary’s accusations.
“The Hungarian authorities’s communication line, which demonizes Ukraine and President Zelenskyy, has gone off the rails,” the ministry’s spokesman, Heorhii Tykhyi, wrote. “We don’t see Hungary demanding that Russia settle for a ceasefire … They continue to be silent when principled motion is required and make baseless accusations when diplomacy is required.”
