“We won such a significant victory that it is visible even from the moon, and you can certainly see it from Brussels ... This victory will be remembered for a lifetime, because so many forces took up arms against us: the left of Hungary and the left abroad, the bureaucrats in Brussels, the empire of Soros with her money, the leading international media and eventually even the Ukrainian president.”

This is an excerpt from the victory speech of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, whose Fidesz-Hungarian Civil Union party won yet another constitutional majority in parliament in early April, defeating the united opposition in elections. Political analysts call the recent elections "free but unfair", pointing to non-transparent campaign funding and the use of propaganda and administrative resources by the ruling party. However, the main thing that provided Orban with such strong support of the voters was the populist promise not to drag Hungary into the war between Russia and Ukraine.

Putin's Trojan Horse

Once a staunch fighter against communism, over the past years Viktor Orban has been a staunch ally of Vladimir Putin in Europe. After February 24, he did not radically change his foreign policy, although he formally condemned the Russian invasion. Hungary is the only EU country neighboring Ukraine that not only refused military assistance to Kyiv, but also did not give permission for the supply of weapons to Ukrainians through its territory.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that after the footage from Bucha abandoned by Russian troops was made public, one of the European leaders doubted its authenticity and demanded to prove that the massacres of civilians were not staged. According to Ukrayinska Pravda, it was about the Hungarian prime minister. Later, Budapest strongly opposed the inclusion of Patriarch Kirill on the sanctions list and the imposition of a complete embargo on the import of Russian oil - as a result, the Druzhba pipeline, through which oil is supplied to Hungary, was excluded from the sixth package of sanctions.

Hungary is the only EU country neighboring Ukraine that not only refused military assistance to Kyiv, but also did not give permission for the supply of weapons to Ukrainians through its territory

Because of its openly pro-Russian policy, Hungary has been called Putin's "Trojan horse" in Europe in the past, and since the beginning of the war, there have been even more reasons for this. Sharp criticism of Orban comes not only from Kyiv and Brussels, but also from his key partners in the European Union. So, in an interview, the head of the Polish ruling party, Yaroslav Kaczynski, advised Orban to consult an ophthalmologist if he “does not see what exactly happened in Bucha,” and also warned that the position of the Hungarian prime minister calls into question the further fate of the alliance of the two countries. In recent years, Warsaw and Budapest have been standing up together against the European Commission, which accuses them of failing to comply with EU democratic standards and threatens to freeze payments from the general budget. A split has also emerged within the Visegrad Four - an informal association of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and Hungary, who usually act as a united front when discussing important issues in Brussels.

How did it happen that the head of government of an EU and NATO member state turned into a conductor of the Kremlin's interests? And why did this become possible in Hungary, which suffered from the Soviet regime?

Corruption cementing friendship

In the 2000s, Orban - first as prime minister (he was first elected to this post in 1998), and then as the head of the largest opposition party - severely criticized Russia and called for Hungary not to again fall into the sphere of influence of Moscow and turned into "Gazprom's funniest hut" (in the 1970s and 1980s, Hungary was called "the most fun hut in the socialist camp" because of its relatively high standard of living). This continued until 2010, when Fidesz again won the election and Orban returned to the premiership. What made him change course abruptly?

In 2017, The Insider wrote that the Russian authorities may have dirt on the Hungarian leader. As it became known, in the mid-1990s he was involved in the corruption schemes of the Russian crime boss Semyon Mogilevich, who then lived in Budapest. In 1994, shortly before the parliamentary elections, Orban could have received from him a suitcase with a million German marks as a "contribution to the election campaign." It is possible that Mogilevich handed over the videotape confirming this to Nikolai Patrushev in exchange for his freedom - and since then the Kremlin has been blackmailing the Hungarian Prime Minister. “Orban has become a puppet who follows Putin’s orders,” a source told The Insider five years ago.

Orban became a puppet who follows Putin's orders

Today, however, experts interviewed by The Insider are not inclined to overestimate the personal ties between Putin and Orban: exposure of corruption that took place 30 years ago is unlikely to shake the position of the Hungarian prime minister inside the country. In relations with Moscow, he is guided by purely pragmatic considerations, using them to strengthen his power. From the point of view of Orban's voters, the main benefit of Hungary's close cooperation with Russia is the favorable price of gas (allegedly five times lower than the market price).

Hungary is indeed heavily dependent on Russian energy imports: 85% of the country's gas and 65% of its oil comes from Russia. In September last year, Budapest signed a contract with Gazprom for the supply of gas bypassing Ukraine for a period of 15 years. It is no coincidence that one of the key topics on the ruling party's election agenda this year was the protection of Hungary's energy security.

Joint business projects with Russia are a source of enrichment for Orban's inner circle. So, in 2014, Rosatom received a contract for the construction of two power units at the Hungarian Paks nuclear power plant. The parties agreed that Moscow would finance up to 80% of the cost of the project, providing a loan of up to 10 billion euros, while one of the main Hungarian subcontractors was an old friend of the prime minister, oligarch Lorints Meszáros. Another businessman close to Orban, and now the country's Minister of Defense, Christoph Salay-Bobrovnitsky, in 2019 became the owner of half the shares of the Russian-Hungarian consortium Transmashholding Hungary.

Joint business projects with Russia are a source of enrichment for Orban's inner circle

Anti-Western unity

Economic benefits are not the only thing that gives Orban friendship with Moscow. Having headed the government in 2010, he began to pursue a multi-vector foreign policy - to develop a strategic partnership with Russia and China (the principle of "openness to the East"), while remaining a full member of NATO and the EU, explains Daniel Hegedusch, researcher at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. In Orban's view, balancing between West and East can become a lever of influence on his Western partners, and above all on the decisions of Brussels, which is concerned about Hungary's authoritarian rollback.

“It is not the attitude of Hungary towards Russia as such that is surprising, but the fact that it has not changed after February 24th. Most likely, Orban is convinced that his influence will be greater if he remains a pro-Russian player in the EU than if he abandons friendly relations with Russia and turns to the West. The Hungarian regime may try to take the place of the representative of the interests of Russia and China in the European Union. In addition, Orban may believe that Putin's Russia will remain an influential global and European player even after this war, and therefore is interested in maintaining good relations with the Kremlin.

Such a foreign policy strategy finds support in society. As last year's survey by the non-governmental organization Globsec showed, a third of the Hungarian population considers the West the preferred geopolitical orientation of their country, while the majority sees its place "between West and East." At the same time, about 80% of citizens support Hungary's membership in NATO and the EU.

Only a third of the Hungarian population considers the West their country's preferred geopolitical orientation

It is also important that Orban and Putin are ideologically close: both believe in the decline of the West and despise Western values, according to political analysts interviewed by The Insider. And in this sense, Russia has become for Orban a counterweight to liberal Europe. In July 2014, the leader of the Hungarian right announced the construction of a new model of the state - "illiberal democracy". “She does not deny the fundamental values ​​of liberalism, such as freedom and so on. But she does not make this ideology a central element of the state structure, but instead takes a specific, national approach, ”Orban said , speaking to ethnic Hungarians in the Romanian city of Bail Tusnad. He named Singapore, China, India, Turkey and Russia as successful examples of "illiberal states based on national values". Western observers noted with concern: under the leadership of the Fidesz leader, Hungary is slipping into authoritarianism.

During the years of Orban's premiership, the democratic institutions in the country have really degraded greatly. Harsh anti-immigrant policy, discrimination against minorities from Roma to LGBTQ+, persecution of organizations funded by Budapest-born George Soros (whom Orban considers "the enemy of the Hungarian people"), change in favor of electoral law power, appointment of members of the prime minister's inner circle to key positions, establishing control over the media - this is an incomplete list of processes described by experts as "the curtailment of democracy." Today, Hungary is the only EU country that the human rights organization Freedom House classifies as only "partially free."

Today, Hungary is the only EU country that human rights activists refer to as only “partially free”

The Russian and Hungarian regimes have a lot in common, political analysts interviewed by The Insider note. Like Putin, Orban dismantled the system of checks and balances that limited his power. There are almost no independent media left in the country: most private media are owned by businessmen loyal to the prime minister. In 2018, about fifty editorial offices were merged into the Central European Press and Media Foundation, completely controlled by Orban's people.

There are also parallels in the domestic politics of the Russian and Hungarian leaders. After returning to the premiership in 2010, Orban, without consultation with opposition parties, initiated the adoption of a new constitution that, according to critics in the European Parliament, threatened to throw the country into a "dark past." Among other things, it included provisions on a single Hungarian nation, the protection of Hungarian communities abroad, and the family as a union of a man and a woman. In subsequent years, the constitution was amended several times to help concentrate power in the hands of the ruling party. In 2017, the country adopted a law on non-profit organizations, apparently inspired by the Russian rules on “foreign agents” (the European Court found it contrary to EU law). And last year's law "on the protection of children", originally aimed at combating pedophilia, in its final version limited sexual education in schools and in many respects repeated the odious Russian law banning "gay propaganda".

According to political analyst and freelancer for the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) András Tot-Zyfry, thanks to Hungary's membership in the EU and NATO, "the political systems of the two countries can only be similar to a certain extent, but Orban constantly and generally successfully pushes these boundaries." .

Change of mood

By betting on friendship with Russia, Orban opposed the traditions of the Hungarian right, said Peter Kreko, director of the independent Budapest-based think tank Political Capital. Until 2010, the Fidesz electorate was extremely critical of Moscow - the memory of the crimes of the communist regime was alive. Orban had to change not only his party, but also the mood of the voters. All the forces of the media empire under his control were thrown into this.

If in the early 2010s, approximately 15% of Hungarian citizens sympathized with Russia, today their share can be from 40 to 60%, says Daniel Hegedyush. This shift was not achieved through external Russian propaganda and disinformation – the main source of pro-Russian and anti-Western propaganda messages was the Hungarian state itself.

Today, 40 to 60% of Hungarian citizens sympathize with Russia

At the same time, the historical narrative promoted by the ruling party was also changing. Hungary began to be spoken of as a unique small country with a different language and culture, and with more than a thousand years of opposition to empires that tried to subdue it, says András Tot-Cifra. In his public speeches, Orbán often sang of the heroism and national unity of the Hungarians in the "struggle" against such empires. He repeatedly referred to the European Union as one of them. Paradoxically, “the ideological successor of the USSR in Orban’s understanding is the EU, and today he considers Russia his ally in confronting the global liberal elites,” adds Daniel Hegedus. The pro-government media also made sure that the general public did not identify today's Russia with the USSR, and the crimes of the Soviet government - for example, the suppression of the uprising in Budapest in 1956 - with Russian imperialism.

Inside Fidesz itself, there are still people with obviously pro-Western views. However, key decisions in the party are made by like-minded and associates of Orban, including Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto, who calls Sergey Lavrov his friend, and Hungarian President Katalin Nowak, a well-known champion of traditional family values.

The anti-European, anti-Ukrainian and pro-Russian rhetoric of the authorities was aimed at reinforcing the image of Orban as a national hero who fights against external enemies, patronizes Hungarians living in neighboring countries, and defends conservative “normality”, explains András Tot-Cifra. Thus, relations between Budapest and Kyiv deteriorated markedly after the adoption in Ukraine of laws on language and education, which the Hungarian authorities regarded as violating the rights of the Hungarian-speaking minority in Transcarpathia.

Relations between Budapest and Kyiv worsened after the adoption of laws on language and education in Ukraine

According to Tot-Tsifra, it was almost impossible to change the current situation after February 24, especially since Orban had elections in April.

“Instead, pro-Russian narratives were “outsourced” to several full-time “talking heads,” while Orban himself and other government officials began to promote the thesis that the war, of course, is a regrettable thing, but it will affect Hungary only if we are “drawn into into it external forces. In the pro-government media, the war in Ukraine was initially covered as a post-Soviet conflict, which is not directly related to Hungary, as long as it does not pose a threat to ethnic Hungarians living in Transcarpathia. Thus, the refusal to provide assistance to Ukraine should be considered a manifestation of a pacifist position.”

“Hungary must stay away from this war and protect the financial security of the economy and families,” Orban emphasized at the end of May, introducing a state of emergency in the country in connection with the consequences of events in Ukraine.

Political scientist Peter Kreko adds that "Hungarians did not become more pro-Russian as a result of the invasion."

“The Fidesz electorate believes in the thesis of the authorities that the guarantee of peace and cheap gas in Hungary lies in not taking sides in the conflict. This “neutrality” fits well with Orbán’s narrative that Hungary should shape its own foreign policy and not be led by the West. In fact, by advocating greater sovereignty, he is increasingly tying himself to Russia and undermining relations with the West.”

At the end of June, at the NATO summit in Madrid, a new strategic concept of the alliance was approved, in which Russia is called "the most significant and direct threat" to the security of the allied countries. Whether Viktor Orban will be able to continue balancing between the West and Russia under such conditions is an open question. One thing is clear to analysts: in the coming years, Hungary will sink deeper into authoritarianism, becoming an increasingly serious problem for the “liberal elites” in Brussels.