Hungarian Opposition Slams Orbán Party’s AI Video Showing War ‘Execution’

Hungary’s opposition has condemned a campaign video by Viktor Orbán’s ruling party that depicts a young girl crying as her father is executed at war amid a debate over Budapest’s potential engagement in the Ukraine conflict.

Hungary is bracing for parliamentary elections in April that could oust Prime Minister Orbán after 16 years of uninterrupted power. Polls show his right-wing Fidesz party trailing Tisza, the main opposition party.

Peter Magyar, the center-right leader of Tisza, on Thursday called on the prime minister to apologize over the video, which appears to be AI-generated.

It depicts a wartime execution and was published on social media channels of Fidesz’s Budapest branch earlier this week.

The topic of safety and European military support for Ukraine have emerged as a major issue of the campaign, with the Kremlin-friendly Orbán claiming that Tisza, acting on EU orders, could drag Hungary into a military conflict against Russia. 

Tisza has rejected these claims, saying it will not send Hungarian troops or weapons to Ukraine.

‘Soulless manipulation’

The campaign video shows a little girl standing at a window asking when her father will be back. It then cuts to footage of a blindfolded soldier in a Hungarian uniform being shot and falling into the mud, dropping the girl’s photo from his hands.

One of the captions reads: “This is only a nightmare now, but Brussels is preparing to make it a reality ... Let’s not take risks. Fidesz is the safe choice!”

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Magyar said the video is “unforgivable, and profoundly outrageous.”

“Using children, executions, and fear-mongering – this is not politics; it is soulless manipulation,” he added.

He also called for the campaign ad to be removed. As of Friday, it was still up.

Gergely Gulyás, Orbán’s chief of staff, defended the video during a briefing, saying it shows “the reality of the war” and that more than a thousand people were killed or seriously injured in the conflict in Ukraine every day, Reuters reported. 

This is not the first time Orbán has brought Ukraine into the election campaign. 

He has previously accused Tisza of being part of a plot by Brussels and Kyiv to install an EU-friendly and pro-Ukrainian government in Budapest. 

Orbán has also claimed that Ukrainian secret service agents are embedded in Hungary – an allegation for which he did not present evidence.