Orbán’s anti-Ukraine campaign targets political rival as Hungary’s elections loom

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) – As Hungary heads toward national elections next spring and the populist government’s popularity slumps, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has zeroed in on a central theme he hopes will sway voters: an alleged threat posed by neighboring Ukraine.

While most European Union countries have offered political, financial, and military support to Kyiv since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, Hungary under Orbán has charted a starkly different course – refusing to supply Ukraine with weapons or allow their transit through Hungarian territory, demanding sanctions relief and rapprochement with Russia, and adopting a combative stance toward both Kyiv and its EU backers.

With his ruling Fidesz party slipping in the polls and a new opposition force gaining momentum, Orbán has escalated a sweeping anti-Ukraine campaign – presenting the upcoming election as a referendum on peace or war. Going further, he has accused his leading political opponent of entering into a treasonous pact with Kyiv to overthrow his government and install a pro-Western, pro-Ukraine administration.

Some of his ideas mirror the growing anti-Ukraine messaging coming from right-wing populists in the West, including from President Donald Trump.

“Let’s be under no illusions: Brussels and Ukraine are jointly building up a puppet government (in Hungary),” Orbán said on June 6 in comments to state radio. “They want to change Hungary’s policy toward Ukraine after the next elections, or even sooner.”

At the heart of Orbán’s claims is Ukraine’s ambition to join the EU, something Kyiv believes would place it firmly within the embrace of the West and provide a measure of security against potential Russian attacks in the future.

While Orbán was a firm supporter of Ukraine’s eventual EU accession shortly after Russia launched its full-scale invasion, he now argues that its membership – which will likely take many years – would flood Hungary with crime, cheap labor, and low-quality agricultural products, threatening national sovereignty and economic stability.

He has also spuriously claimed that Brussels and Kyiv intend to force Hungarians to fight Russia on the front lines. On Monday, Orbán posted a video to his social media page depicting animated, artificial intelligence-generated scenes of bloodied, machine-gun wielding Hungarian soldiers engaged in armed conflict, and rows of caskets lined beneath Hungarian flags.

“We don’t want our children, in the form of the Hungarian army, to be deployed to the Ukrainian front lines or to Ukrainian territory and to come back in coffins,” he said in the video.

Central to Orbán’s life-or-death narrative of the Hungarian election is his growing campaign against his main political rival, Péter Magyar, a former Fidesz insider whose new Tisza party has surged in popularity.

Once married to Hungary’s former justice minister, Magyar has become the most formidable challenger to Orbán’s rule since the EU’s longest-serving leader took office in 2010. With Tisza leading Fidesz in most independent polls, some analysts and domestic critics believe Orbán may be laying the groundwork to discredit or even disqualify Magyar ahead of the 2026 election.

Péter Krekó, director of the Budapest-based Political Capital think tank, said Orbán’s attempt to link Magyar and Tisza to the image of a dangerous Ukraine is aimed at neutralizing his domestic opposition as popular sentiment appears to be turning against him.

“There is an ongoing campaign against any critical voices in Hungary saying that they are agents of Ukraine, and this can be used also against the Tisza party,” he told The Associated Press. “If you can’t win back public opinion anymore, then you can try to use a more authoritarian toolkit.”

Beyond political rhetoric, such accusations have reached the highest levels of diplomacy. In May, Ukraine’s main security agency said that it had arrested two people on suspicion of spying for Hungary by gathering intelligence on Ukraine’s military defenses in the west of the country. That set off a tit-for-tat series of diplomatic expulsions, and accusations from Hungary’s government that the affair was part of a concerted Ukrainian campaign involving Magyar and his party to undermine Orbán.

The prime minister accused Magyar and Tisza of being “pro-Ukrainian” and supporting Ukraine’s EU bid, and alleging that a prominent Tisza member, the former chief of staff of the Hungarian military, has “deep ties with Ukrainian intelligence.” No evidence has been provided to support the claims, which Magyar has dismissed outright.

“It is outrageous and blood-boiling when a patriot who trained and prepared to be a soldier since the age of 14 and who took a military oath … is accused of treason by people who would sell their country out,” Magyar told a news conference on June 5.

To reinforce its message, the Hungarian government launched a state-funded communication blitz in March, accompanied by a non-binding “national consultation” on Ukraine’s EU membership. Billboards, television ads, and social media posts have flooded the country, portraying Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen as the architects of a plot to undermine, or even destroy Hungary.

“They would bring Ukraine into the EU, but we would pay the price!” reads one poster. “Let’s vote no!”

Ukrainian officials have been restrained in reacting to the Hungarian campaign. But in an interview published last week in Hungarian outlet Válasz Online, Zelenskyy criticized the government’s use of his face as part of its media barrage, and accused Orbán of being “anti-Ukrainian and anti-European.”

“He is using this in his domestic policy: he wants to turn the war in Ukraine to his own advantage in the elections. That is dishonest,” Zelenskyy said.

In a post on X on Tuesday, Ukraine’s foreign ministry also pushed back on Hungary’s accusations.

“The Hungarian government’s communication line, which demonizes Ukraine and President Zelenskyy, has gone off the rails,” the ministry’s spokesman, Heorhii Tykhyi, wrote. “We don’t see Hungary demanding that Russia accept a ceasefire … They remain silent when principled action is needed and make baseless accusations when diplomacy is required.”