Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has long cast the war in Ukraine as an existential threat to his country, portraying Hungary as an innocent bystander in a conflict not of its making. “We Hungarians are the only ones, apart from the Ukrainians, who are dying in that war,” he declared in 2022. In Orban’s telling, Hungary belongs to the “peace camp,” while Ukraine, Brussels, Washington, D.C., and Moscow form the “war party.”
The framing resonates. Hungary’s memory of the 1956 uprising, when Soviet troops crushed dissent, leaving 2,500 people dead and 20,000 wounded, remains a national trauma. Invoking images of Hungarian sons returning in coffins, Orban has turned fear of war into political capital.
However, the latest rupture between Hungary and Ukraine occurred after Ukraine hit the Druzhba (“friendship”) pipeline, which delivers Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia. Orban denounced the attack as a threat to national security and an “attempt to drag us into the war,” while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky retorted that the pipeline’s future depends on Hungary. The clash added to a relationship already fractured by Orban’s refusal to back Ukraine in the war and his veto of European Union accession talks.
Inside the EU, Orban has set Hungary apart. He blocked weapons for Ukraine from crossing Hungarian territory, even as shipments reportedly went through Hungarian airspace and roads en route to Poland. He dragged out the EU sanctions packages against Russia. At the same time, Orban has expanded Hungary’s energy ties with Moscow: the $14.5 billion Paks II nuclear project, financed up to $11.6 billion by a Russian state loan, planned to lay the first concrete in November after President Donald Trump removed sanctions imposed by the Biden administration. Hungary imports 95% of its gas and 64% of its oil from Russia, even as most EU states have cut Russian supply shares.
Orban presents himself as Hungary’s sole defender against foreign powers. That message has accompanied the erosion of media independence, the weakening of judicial independence, and mounting pressure on civic freedoms. With a pivotal 2026 election looming, Orban is doubling down on theatrics and using Russia’s war in Ukraine as fodder for domestic politics.
Hungary’s drift toward Moscow quickened under former President Barack Obama, when U.S. signals left Central Europe feeling snubbed. In 2009, Obama scrapped former President George W. Bush’s missile-defense plans for Poland and the Czech Republic, announced on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland, with both governments told only hours in advance. The decision became shorthand for Washington, D.C.’s, waning commitment. Coupled with the “pivot to Asia,” it fed the impression that Central Europe no longer mattered, just as Russia was regaining confidence. The choice of a Hollywood producer as ambassador to Budapest only reinforced the sense of a shallow, distracted United States.
If Germany could deepen ties with Moscow through its Nord Stream energy pipelines, if Washington, D.C., could pursue a “reset” with Russia, and if France could treat the Kremlin as a partner rather than a threat, smaller Central European states could hardly be expected to behave differently. The larger powers normalized engagement with Moscow; Budapest simply followed their lead.
UNCLEAR IF LISA COOK STILL AT FED AFTER TRUMP FIRING
Hungary is now betting that, absent real Western resolve, Russia will emerge from the war in Ukraine with some sort of victory. Orban has placed his chips on that outcome, hedging against the possibility of Moscow’s renewed strength. Though he has cultivated ties with Trump, he harbors no illusions about Washington, D.C.’s, short attention span.
As a result, Hungary has acted as a spoiler and opportunist, turning limited leverage into political capital. Yet Orban knows what every Hungarian leader since 1989 has known: if the Russian threat ever returns, it will not be Moscow or Beijing that keeps Hungary safe, but U.S. troops under NATO.