Facing Tough Election, Hungary's PM Says Ukraine Is the Enemy

Facing a tough election, Hungary's pro-Russian prime minister is trying to convince voters that the greatest threat to the country is not economic stagnation—the focus of his top opponent—but neighboring Ukraine. As the AP reports, Viktor Orbán is running an aggressive media campaign replete with disinformation whose central message is that Hungarians should refuse to align with the rest of Europe in supporting Ukraine against Russia. That path, he argues, risks bankrupting the country and getting its youth killed on the front lines. Billboards erected across the country show AI-generated images of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky flanked by European officials, holding out his hand as if demanding money. "Our message to Brussels: We won't pay!" the publicly funded billboards read.

If there had been any doubt, it's become clear why the outcome of Hungary's upcoming election will reverberate beyond its borders. Last week, Orbán's government halted diesel shipments to Ukraine and threatened to veto a $106 billion EU loan destined for Kyiv. Hungary on Monday blocked a new package of EU sanctions on Russia in response to interruptions in Russian oil supplies that pass through Ukraine, and vowed to veto any further pro-Ukraine policies until oil flows. On Wednesday, Orbán went further and deployed military and police forces around power plants and other facilities, claiming without providing evidence that Ukraine was plotting to attack the country's energy system.

Orbán is widely seen as the Kremlin's strongest ally in the EU. While almost all of the bloc's other 26 nations have distanced themselves from Russia since it launched the war on Feb. 24, 2022, Hungary has deepened cooperation. Orbán has cast his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin as pragmatic, stemming from Hungary's access to reliable supplies of Russian oil and gas. But Orbán's anti-LGBTQ+ policies, crackdowns on the media and nongovernmental organizations, and labeling of critics as "foreign agents" have led to accusations that he's reading from Putin's authoritarian playbook.

Orbán, who retook office in 2010, faces the strongest challenge to his power in an April 12 election. The EU's longest-serving leader and his right-wing Fidesz party are trailing in most polls to an upstart center-right challenger, Péter Magyar. A 44-year-old lawyer and former Fidesz insider who broke with the party in 2024, Magyar promises to restore Hungary's Western orientation and bolster democratic institutions which have eroded during Orbán's 16 years in power.