Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is accusing the Ukrainian government of attempting to blow up a Russian gas pipeline, despite a lack of such findings from authorities.
Orban, who is facing an uphill battle to hold on to his office in this month’s parliamentary election, asserted that Kyiv attempted to sabotage a Serbian gas pipeline that transports fuel from Russia.
“Yesterday, [the Ukrainian government] wanted to blow up the gas pipeline,” Orban wrote on social media on Monday. “We are checking whether everything is in order on the Hungarian side.”
Authorities in Serbia on Sunday discovered two backpacks rigged with plastic explosives near the village of Velebit in the northern part of the country.
The undetonated explosives were reportedly discovered just a few hundred feet from the gas pipeline.
Balazs Orban, the prime minister’s political director, asserted on X that “Ukraine wants to force Hungary to abandon its pro-peace position and support the war.”
Hungary’s claims directly contradict the Serbian authorities’ findings. Military Security Agency Director Djuro Jovanic said it is “not true that Ukrainians tried to organize this sabotage.”
“Based on the markings on the explosives, it is unmistakably clear that the manufacturer is from the United States,” Jovanic pointed out. “Now, will someone suggest that the United States would benefit from this situation at this moment?”
Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Heorhii Tykhyi suggested on social media that the backpack incident was “most likely a Russian false-flag operation, as part of Moscow’s strong interference in the Hungarian elections.”
Opposition party Tisza leader Peter Magyar accused Orban of intentionally “stoking panic” and demanded the prime minister “immediately provide information on developments and convene the security council.”
“Hungarians have sufficient grounds for concern that a prime minister facing the loss of power, on the advice of Russian agents, is planning to instill fear in his fellow citizens by means of increasingly clumsy false flag operations,” Magyar said. “If Orbán’s propaganda machine uses this provocation for campaign purposes, that will be an open admission that this was a planned false flag operation.”
Orban is set to host U.S. Vice President JD Vance this week, who is visiting in a last-minute bid to boost the embattled prime minister’s public support.
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President Donald Trump’s administration sees the Orban government as a bastion of nationalist, Christian leadership on the European continent. The White House has many times held Hungary up as a model for how European nations should behave on the international stage.
Vance is expected to give a series of public remarks in support of the Hungarian government and meet privately with the prime minister’s team.