Hungarian elections under the shadow of Russian influence, Budapest's European future in question

On April 12, Hungarians will go to the polls to decide the fate of one of the most Russia-friendly leaders in the EU.

The election comes amid a wave of shocking reports detailing secret communications between Russian and Hungarian officials, leaving no doubt that Budapest's efforts to thwart EU sanctions in recent years were done on the direct orders of Moscow.

The Kremlin has a lot to lose if the prime minister is voted out and, according to Hungarian media, will do everything it can to ensure his victory. But Orban was not always the right-wing, Putin-praising populist he is today; in fact, he began his career as quite the opposite, Novaya Gazeta reports.

Freedom versus oil

On June 16, 1989, a ceremony was held in Budapest's central Heroes' Square to mark the reburial of Imre Nagy, the leader of Hungary's 1956 anti-Soviet uprising. At the event, Viktor Orban, 26, addressed a crowd of thousands, calling for free elections and the immediate withdrawal of Soviet troops.

The violent suppression of the 1956 uprising had long been a defining moment in Hungarian national memory, and the young politician was building his platform on staunch anti-communism. His public speaking established him as a politician of national importance.

Until the late 2000s, Orban and his Fidesz party were constantly critical of Moscow. Serving as pro-European prime minister from 1998 to 2002, he spent his years in opposition actively warning the country against returning to the Kremlin's orbit.

In 2007, for example, Orban spoke out against allowing Hungary to become “Gazprom’s happiest barracks,” a reprise of the country’s previous reputation as the Eastern Bloc’s “happiest barracks” due to its relatively high living standards. That same year, Orban declared: “Oil comes from the East, but freedom comes from the West.” A year later, he condemned Russia’s invasion of Georgia, describing it as “an imperialist act of pure power politics.”

Orban’s stance on Russia began to change after Fidesz returned to power in 2010, following the global financial crisis. Political scientist Balint Magyar, who has written about Orban’s Hungary as a “mafia state,” has suggested that this shift may have been triggered by the fact that the prime minister was shown compromising footage of himself during a visit to St. Petersburg in 2009.

Maxim Samorukov, a fellow at the Carnegie Russia-Eurasia Center, said he agrees that Orban “has become neither anti-Western nor pro-Russian.”

"It's one thing to be in opposition and criticize the government for 'selling the country to Russia,' and quite another to come to power and realize that gas and oil have been coming from there for decades, that nuclear technology is also linked to Russia, and so on," he explained.

After securing a parliamentary supermajority, the Fidesz government initiated a fundamental overhaul of Hungary’s foreign policy. In 2011, Budapest announced the “Eastern Opening” doctrine, based on the idea that Hungary could diversify its foreign policy while maintaining the benefits of EU membership.

Official documents presented this as a need to expand exports and attract investment from China, Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan and other countries.

In practice, everything focused on cooperation with Moscow and Beijing — and the actual trade results were modest. Hungarian exports to Russia, for example, began to decline as early as 2011, long before the first European sanctions were imposed in 2014.

A client-owner relationship

The maneuver between West and East allowed Budapest to gain additional influence in its relations with Brussels — which, in the early 2010s, Hungarian authorities had considered their main adversary.

Orban laid the ideological foundations for this course in the summer of 2014. Speaking to ethnic Hungarians in the Romanian town of Baile Tuşnad, he rejected Western-style liberalism and announced the construction of an “illiberal state,” citing Russia, China, and Turkey as models.

Orban began openly praising Vladimir Putin as a strong national leader who remains loyal to “liberal rules” and defends “traditional values.” As Balint Magyar noted, the relationship between Orban and Putin began to resemble a client-patron dynamic, with the Kremlin rewarding the Hungarian elite through various corrupt and semi-legal schemes, and Budapest rewarding it with political favors that undermined the unity of the EU and NATO.

This dynamic became particularly pronounced after February 2022. Orban has met with Putin four times since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began. In 2024, he traveled to visit Putin while leading the country holding the rotating EU presidency, provoking particularly sharp anger in Brussels.

Energy dependence on Russia

Moscow and Budapest’s mutual dependence is most evident in the energy sector. According to Maxim Samorukov, Hungary has long relied heavily on Soviet-era energy supplies, and successive governments kept this relationship with Moscow alive after the collapse of the USSR. When Orban returned to power in 2010, these contracts allowed him to keep fuel costs and utility bills under control.

"The corrupt element is undoubtedly extraordinary: those who 'stand by the pipeline' in Hungary earn crazy money. But there is a real economic benefit for the country and every Hungarian feels it," Samorukov said.

Brussels, according to experts interviewed by Novaya Gazeta Europe, has offered few viable alternatives to Russian energy. Between 2022 and 2025, Russia's share of Hungary's oil imports increased from 61% to an unprecedented 92%.

While the European Union was trying to restructure its logistics and gradually abandon pipeline supplies, Budapest systematically created exceptions for itself.

The situation in the gas sector is similar. The European Commission plans for all EU member states to completely phase out Russian gas by early 2027. However, the Hungarian government insists that it cannot do without Russian energy just yet, even as it continues a policy of diversification of supply.

The main project that tied Hungary most closely to Moscow is the expansion of the Paks nuclear power plant.

The agreement to build two new reactors, a project known as Paks II, was signed in early 2014, behind closed doors and without an open international tender. The project is estimated at 12.5 billion euros, of which 10 billion euros were provided as state loans from the Russian federal budget.

On February 5, 2026, Rosatom began pouring concrete for the foundations of the first of the two new reactor units. One of the main Hungarian subcontractors was an entity linked to oligarch Lorinc Meszaros, an early friend of Prime Minister Orban.

However, there have been some efforts to reduce Hungary's dependence on Russian nuclear fuel.

The potential alternative supplier is the United States, which is currently equally friendly to Orban; US President Donald Trump has openly supported the Hungarian prime minister ahead of the upcoming elections.

There are no secrets.

Russia’s influence on Hungarian affairs has gone beyond industry and energy. In 2019, the Orban government invited the International Investment Bank (IIB) — a financial institution controlled by the Russian government and a relic of the Soviet-era Council for Mutual Economic Assistance — to move its headquarters from Moscow to Budapest.

The bank was granted a number of unprecedented privileges, including exemption from financial supervision, zero taxes and diplomatic immunity for its staff. Its leadership was also granted the right to bring an unlimited number of guests to Hungary, who could then move freely throughout the Schengen Zone without standard security checks.

Budapest ignored its partners’ concerns until spring 2023, when the US Treasury imposed direct sanctions on IIB and three of its top executives. Only then did Hungary hastily announce that it was withdrawing as a shareholder.

In its willingness to sacrifice Euro-Atlantic security to maintain its exclusive ties with the Kremlin, Hungary has repeatedly put its own security at risk.

The most significant breach involved the compromise of a secure external network that diplomats use to transmit encrypted NATO and EU documents classified as restricted and secret. Despite the scale of the intrusion, Orban’s government never publicly blamed Russia or turned to NATO allies for emergency assistance.

Instead, it adopted a policy of institutional silence, while diplomats continued to use compromised communication systems, putting Alliance data at risk.

When the scandal finally erupted into the political arena, Fidesz members did their best to stifle it. In 2024, the ruling party’s MPs simply did not show up for a parliamentary session called to address the issue, dismissing it as a hoax. Opposition lawmakers responded by placing small Russian flags in every empty seat.

Diplomatic consequences

These security failures were exacerbated by direct leaks of information at the political level. In March 2026, The Washington Post, citing European intelligence services, reported that Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto had systematically used breaks during closed EU Council sessions to call his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov.

Moscow was receiving real-time data on member states' positions, details of sanctions packages, and parameters of aid to Ukraine.

Szijjarto initially dismissed the story as a “ridiculous conspiracy theory,” then changed tactics and insisted that such contacts were standard diplomatic practice.

This caused a crisis within the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy. Politico, citing multiple EU diplomats, reported that in response to the revelations, decision-makers across the bloc have begun “restricting the flow of confidential material to Hungary,” with leaders “meeting in smaller groups.”

“The news that Orban’s people inform Moscow about EU Council meetings in every detail should come as no surprise to anyone. We have had our suspicions about this for a long time,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk wrote on X. He also revealed that in 2019, Lithuania had requested that the Hungarian delegation be excluded from a NATO meeting due to fears of classified leaks.

Hungary's function as a back channel for Moscow is reinforced by the systematic exploitation of the EU's decision-making architecture in Russia's interests. The requirement for unanimity in Council votes has allowed the Orbán government to turn its veto into a tool of blackmail.

In 2026, Budapest blocked the 20th package of sanctions against Russia and vetoed a €90 billion macro-financial loan for Ukraine. Its official justification for the latter was Kiev's decision to stop the transit of Russian oil through the Druzhba pipeline.

Budapest has also quietly negotiated exemptions from sanctions lists for members of the Russian elite.

Brussels has long been seeking mechanisms and legal solutions to bypass the Hungarian veto, but so far no solution has been found that is effective and painless for the EU as a whole.

However, this search may not be necessary for much longer. Peter Magyar – the leader of Tisza (Respect and Freedom), currently Hungary’s most popular political party – is not an unconditional pro-European, but he is far from the ardent antagonist of Brussels that Orban has been.

Online influence efforts

Judging by the polls, Peter Magyar may have reason to celebrate: 49% of voters support Tisza compared to just 39% for Fidesz. But in Hungary, only 93 parliamentary seats are allocated by party lists – 106 are determined in single-member constituencies. And there, thanks in part to electoral manipulation in those constituencies, Fidesz is on stronger ground.

The loss of a friendly government in the heart of Europe is likely unacceptable to the Kremlin – and that is why, according to independent analysts and investigative journalists, Russia's leadership has launched an intervention operation on an unprecedented scale to preserve the status quo.

According to the Financial Times, a detailed plan to flood Hungarian social media with pro-government messages and undermine the Hungarian government was developed by the US-sanctioned Russian firm Social Design Agency. The campaign focused primarily on Hungarian TikTok.

Journalists identified dozens of anonymous accounts involved, including a group of 34 profiles created within a 48-hour period that shared AI-generated content. For politically engaged audiences, the operation produced fabricated news-style broadcasts with AI-generated presenters and commentators criticizing Hungary for various reasons.

For less politically engaged users, the operation relied on fake videos of Hollywood actors, with clips depicting “Leonardo DiCaprio” and “Johnny Depp” warning Hungarians about rising energy costs if the opposition won.

Russia’s influence operation has made particular efforts to exploit tensions between Hungary and Ukraine. Fake videos have been circulating across the X, including one bearing a Reuters logo that falsely claimed that Volodymyr Zelensky had told Politico: “Only backward people could vote and support Orban.” Content posted by accounts posing as Human Rights Watch claimed that Ukrainian refugees had carried out thousands of attacks on Hungarian citizens in various EU countries.

Orban himself has played a role in this narrative. The most striking example was the March 5 arrest of a transit convoy belonging to Ukraine's state-owned Oschadbank, traveling from Vienna to Kiev, carrying $40 million, €35 million, and 9 kilograms of gold.

According to VSquare, the initial plan had been to seize illegal weapons and fabricate a media scandal around a story of a “terrorist threat” or “arms trafficking.” When no weapons were found, those leading the operation ordered the opening of a fabricated money laundering case, and government propaganda began pushing the idea of ​​a Ukrainian “military mafia.”

Involvement of Russian intelligence

Russian intelligence services have been directly involved in the Hungarian election campaign, according to investigative journalists. According to VSquare's sources, a few weeks before the April vote, a team of three career officers from the Russian military intelligence agency, the GRU, was deployed to Budapest.

The operatives arrived under diplomatic cover, giving them de facto immunity from deportation, and were reportedly tasked with managing networks of influential local agents and coordinating information operations.

Opposition leader Peter Magyar took reports of the operation so seriously that he demanded the immediate expulsion of the officers. An unnamed member of the parliamentary national security committee later told Hungarian news portal Telex that such information had indeed come from Western intelligence services, but said there were no Russian agents in Hungary.

Russia’s foreign intelligence service, the SVR, has also been involved. In the summer of 2025, it issued a statement claiming that Brussels was “furious with Budapest’s attempts to pursue an independent policy” and was “seriously considering scenarios for regime change in Budapest.”

Kiev, the SVR added, “on the orders of Brussels, had actively joined the campaign to bring Péter Magyar to power.” Hungary’s state news agency, MTI, published the statement without comment.

By March 2026, it was clear that the SVR had effectively joined the Hungarian election campaign directly. The Washington Post published details of an internal SVR report, intercepted and verified by European intelligence services, describing a plan codenamed Gamechanger. The strategy involved staging a fake assassination attempt on Viktor Orban, with the aim of replicating the dramatic electoral effect of the real attempt on Donald Trump’s life in July 2024. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov predictably dismissed the report as disinformation.

A turning point

Viktor Orban himself has dismissed the whole idea that Russia is interfering in the election as “a pathetic spectacle” and “a fairy tale of rather poor quality.” It remains to be seen how this will end. If Fidesz manages to hold onto its parliamentary majority, Budapest’s foreign policy will remain exactly as it is, and the country’s isolation within the EU and NATO will reach new depths.

Politico reported that the EU is actively drafting contingency plans for another Orban victory.
Options on the table include expanding the use of qualified majority voting in areas that currently require unanimity; relying even more than now on flexible formats such as informal coalitions of willing and smaller groups of member states; increasing pressure on Budapest by freezing or cutting EU funds; inciting procedures that could strip Budapest of its voting rights for systematic disregard for European values; and expelling Hungary from the EU altogether.

Each option carries risks and complications. The last, for example, is essentially out of the question: the EU's founding treaties contain no mechanism for the exclusion of a member state.

Magyar's team, for its part, has kept its focus throughout on domestic issues – the economy and corruption. According to analyst Maxim Samorukov, this is precisely his strong point: "Tisza avoids engaging in active debate on the war in Ukraine, cooperation with Russia or relations with Europe. And that is precisely why his ratings are where they are."

One thing is clear: a Hungarian victory would bring a honeymoon period with Brussels. “Good relations with the EU leadership will come regardless of who the Hungarians’ allies actually are or what their true views turn out to be,” Samorukov said.

"Brussels will be ready to welcome them, show them some warmth and demonstrate that getting rid of Orban will bring clear dividends to Hungary. And since Budapest's room for maneuver would be significantly wider in that period than it is now, it will be much more difficult for Russia to impose anything on them."

At the same time, dismantling “illiberal democracy” will not happen overnight. Over 16 years, Orban has built an electoral autocracy in which Hungary’s courts, regulators, and media are all closely tied to the Fidesz party machine. Even if the Magyars win, his cabinet could face institutional obstacles at every turn. Pushing through the most far-reaching reforms possible would require a constitutional supermajority – two-thirds of the seats – which is not a realistic prospect.

Whatever happens, the April 12 elections will resolve a big question: whether Hungary will remain Russia's Trojan horse within the EU, or begin the slow and difficult journey back into the European mainstream.

The Geopost