On the Political Degeneration of Viktor Orbán
02.12.2022Today, Hungary does not hesitate to act as the Kremlin’s fifth column in the European Union. It has become the only EU country that does not participate in the shared European mission to train the Ukrainian military. Budapest recently blocked €18 billionEU financial aid to Ukraine. The same week, the Hungarian Foreign Minister said that his country is against the ninth package of sanctions against the Russian Federation. It’s all comes down to the personality of the current prime minister, an experienced politician who has consolidated power of the country in his hands.
Putin and Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orban
From 1988 to 2009, Viktor Orbán was one of Europe’s most anti-Russian politicians. Back in 1989, at the reburial ceremony of Imre Nagy (the head of the Hungarian government executed after the suppression of the uprising in Hungary by Soviet troops in 1956), Orbán spoke of “Russian”, unlike everyone else, and not the “Soviet” empire, and demanded the withdrawal of “Russian” troops from Hungary. When Orbán was elected prime minister in 1998, he, unlike his predecessors, avoided traveling to Moscow and only intensified his anti-Russian rhetoric.
Orbán’s attitude towards the Kremlin was influenced by his subsequent defeats in two elections, in the opposition; he tried on the image of the leader of the “patriotic forces” of Hungary. The turning point for him came in 2009, when Orbán arrived in Moscow for the United Russia conference. There are two reasons for his behavioral political transformation: “carnal” and “spiritual.”
The obvious selfish (carnal) reason for the unexpected change in Orbán’s attitude towards the then Prime Minister Putin was the tangible opportunity to purchase cheap energy for the Hungarian economy, which was already 80% dependent on Russian gas supplies. In September 2014, Orbán stated that “a liberal state would not be able to lower gas and electricity bills.” That is, Putin becomes for Orbán an ideological brother in the struggle for “conservative values”, a “good fairy” or even a “godfather” who can ensure the supply of cheap energy. To prove Orbán’s “sincerity” to Putin – Orbán took a pacifying stance on the annexation of Ukraine’s territory in 2014. Conservative ideas of denying liberal progress in the modern world formed the basis of Orbán’s “spiritual” transmutation, which brought him closer first to Putin, and then to Donald Trump.
However, the essence of Orbán’s anti-Ukrainian rhetoric is precisely in self-interest, and not in ideology. Orbán’s power is held together by Russia’s dirty money, as well as itsgas and oil. The Hungarian company Mol, controlled by Orbán, works on Russian Urals oil and ensures the implementation of projects of the ruling Fidesz party. At this time, through the efforts of the Civic Solidarity Forum and the media controlled by Orbán, narratives about the validity of territorial claims to Ukraine are being imposed on Hungarian public opinion, and some (about 10%) of voters dream of a “Greater Hungary”, which includes Ukrainian Transcarpathia.
Is it possible to reverse the transmutation of Orbán’s political behavior, primarily in relation to Ukraine? To a large extent, the success of the rite of exorcism (the expulsion of the Kremlin’s spirit from the political body of the Hungarian prime minister) will depend on the political atmosphere in the United States. Viktor Orbán publicly supports Donald Trump and expects the latter to return to the presidency in 2024. Let’s hope that the inviolability of the bipartisan position of the United States in supporting Kyiv, regardless of the results for the next US presidential elections, will transmute our Hungarian “hero” towards thecorrect direction.
Andriy Mishyn, Director of the Kyiv Institute for Peace Studies, Newssky Columnist
