Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Fidesz Party decisively won a two thirds majority during this past Sunday’s Parliamentary Elections. However, the Prime Minister, who has led the nation since 2010, was not all smiles. During the course of his victory speech, Mr. Orban referred to Ukrainian President Zelensky as an “opponent.”
Relations between Kyiv and Budapest have drawn consternation in recent days as Mr Zelensky accused Mr Orban of not doing enough to assist Ukraine and of not being an ally of the West. However, Budapest made the point of reminding Ukraine that Hungary has been the largest per capita recipient of Ukrainians refugees, taking in and hosting over 530,000 people since the war began.
During his address to the European Union on March 25, Mr Zelensky referred specifically to Mr Orban by saying “Listen, Viktor, do you know what’s going on in Mariupol?” The Ukrainian President then went on to criticize Mr. Orban for “hesitating” on a number of fronts, including imposing sanctions on Russia, allowing NATO weapons to pass through Hungarian territory, and limiting trade with Russia. Mr Zelensky concluded his statement by saying “There is no time to hesitate – it’s time to decide!”
On April 6, the Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Péter Szijjártó, summoned Ukraine’s Ambassador to Budapest over President Zelensky’s comments. “It is time for Ukrainian leaders to stop insulting Hungary and take into account the will of the Hungarian people,” said Szijjártó, following his dressing-down of the Ukrainian Ambassador.
A senior figure close to the Hungarian Government, who insisted on remaining anonymous, said that Mr Zelensky’s criticism of Mr. Orban was unfair as “Hungary has been in lock-step with NATO and EU resolutions to support Ukraine.” He made the point that peace and security was a key message for the Fidesz party in the run-up to this past Sunday’s election; and that more could not be expected from Budapest as Fidesz “promised voters that they would not get pulled into this war”. The source emphasized that “it would be counter to the interests and demands of Hungarian citizens, who had just voted for Fidesz by the largest percentage of any political party in Hungary, ever.”
In the lead-up to Hungary’s elections, Mr. Orban had stated: “This isn’t our war, we have to stay out of it.”
When questioned whether the Hungarian Government was planning to cut Russian energy imports, as other countries have done, the source stated: “Hungary sees it as being in the defense of their national interests to not cut Russian energy. Hungary must first and foremost be concerned with its own national economy. It is simply unaffordable to cut off Russian energy right now, which is no different from the stance taken by other EU member states such as Germany.”
Conflict between Kyiv and Budapest is nothing new. Since 2018, Hungary has actively blocked ministerial-level meetings between NATO and Ukraine to discuss Ukraine’s ascension to the alliance.
According to the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, this stems from a law passed in 2017 during the Presidency of Petro Poroshenko, which limited “the rights of ethnic minorities to be educated in their native language.” The result of the law, which would potentially impact Ukraine’s 150,000 Hungarian minorities, would force “historic minority languages, with a few exceptions, to only be spoken in private communication or during religious events.” This drew the ire of several minority groups, their kin-states, and international organizations who “raised their voices against the new legislation, including the Council of Europe, the Venice Commission, the European Union and NATO itself,” said the Hungarian Foreign Ministry.
Following a “lengthy” telephone call with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin on Aprli 6, the Hungarian Prime Minister gave a press conference during which he revealed that he suggested Russia implements a ceasefire in Ukraine, something that his Russian counterpart balked at by retorting that there were conditions that must be met before such a step could be taken.
The Kremlin’s talking points, vigorously repeated on Russian state-controlled broadcasters, continuously refer to the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine as being an effort by Moscow to secure regional and global peace by “denazifying” Ukraine, preventing NATO from placing nuclear weapons near the Russia border, and by preventing a Ukrainian-backed NATO attack on Russian soil.
However, in sharp contrast to Russia’s line, Mr. Orban reiterated his support for Ukraine and repeated the narrative often heard across European capitals, that “this is a war that the Russians started by attacking Ukraine with its aggression, which is the joint stance of the European Union and Hungary.”
Mr. Orban revealed that though he was willing to help resolve the on-going conflict in any way he could, including by hosting talks between Ukraine and Russia, it was ultimately not in his hands what would transpire in Ukraine, but something that could only be decided through dialogue between Moscow and Kyiv.
In statements made by Moscow regarding the call with Mr. Orban, the Kremlin revealed that President Putin had told the Hungarian Prime Minister that the human rights abuses in Bucha were a “crude and cynical provocation” by the “Kyiv Regime” and that the Ukrainian government was planning to stage further attacks on its own civilians.
The Spokeswoman of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs reflected this viewpoint by saying that Ukraine had organized the atrocities in Bucha and across Ukraine. She blamed the Western media, especially the American press, for spreading “false information” and costing civilian lives in Ukraine; moreover, that Western media shares “complicity” in the murder of Ukrainians.
In conversation with the Kyiv Post, when the senior source close to the Hungarian Government was asked if Hungary might change tack and take a more active role in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the source responded that “the Hungarian Government has made a commitment that its policy will remain in lockstep with NATO, so don’t expect any changes unless there is a change in the position of the NATO Alliance.”
