President Volodymyr Zelensky said US Vice President JD Vance’s visit to Hungary ahead of the country’s election was “not helpful.”
In an interview for The Guardian, published on Wednesday, April 9, Zelensky said he would not interfere in Hungary’s domestic politics, adding that it was up to voters to decide the outcome of Sunday’s election.
Zelensky said Europe must strengthen its security cooperation at a time when US commitment to NATO appears uncertain.
He called for closer coordination between the European Union, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, Turkey, and Norway to form a security bloc capable of deterring Russia.
“Without Ukraine and Turkey, Europe will not have a similar army that Russia has,” Zelensky said, adding that Kyiv would eventually join the EU.
Vance said he traveled to rally for Orban at the request of US President Donald Trump, due to what they claimed was election interference by the EU, according to Hungarian outlet Telex.
During the rally, Vance also echoed Orban’s longstanding criticism of Kyiv, Zelensky, and the EU – also a core theme of Orban’s election campaign – claiming they tried to interfere with the US and Hungarian elections.
“This is just what they do. This is part and cost of doing the business with some elements of their system. I try to remind myself that Ukraine, like the United States, is a very complicated place,” he said, as reported by Ukrainian outlet European Pravda.
Hungarian opposition leader Péter Magyar slammed what he called foreign interference on Tuesday – regardless of the country of origin.
“Hungarian history is not written in Washington, not in Brussels, not in Kyiv, not in Moscow and not in Serbia but in Hungary. Hungarian history is written by Hungarian people,” he said.
Vance on Wednesday criticized earlier remarks made by Zelensky against Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in March, calling them “completely scandalous” and “preposterous.”
Speaking at a panel in Budapest while campaigning for Orban ahead of Hungary’s April 12 elections, Vance cited what he described as Zelensky’s threats against Orban during a diplomatic standoff over Budapest’s blocking of a vital EU loan for Kyiv worth €90 billion ($103 billion).
“I wasn’t even aware that Zelensky had said that he was going to send private soldiers to the prime minister’s residence until yesterday. Viktor [Orban] actually told me that, and then I went and looked it up,” Vance said.