A flurry of mutual threats and insults is flying between Kiev and Budapest, the Hungarian Foreign Ministry is calling the Ukrainian ambassador to the carpet, and bilateral relations are in their deepest crisis. One could say that this is happening once again, if it weren't for several significant circumstances.
First of all, the degree of tension has reached an unprecedented level. Comparisons of today's politicians with Adolf Hitler's associates, accusations of multi-billion dollar corruption and even hints that Viktor Orbán could donate his own organs to Vladimir Putin are taking place.
Secondly — and this seems significantly more important — the conflict is heating up on the eve of the start of the campaign for the parliamentary elections in Hungary, which is already being described as the most important in the country's history. Ukraine, without really wanting it, will become one of the main topics of the pre-election debate.
Victor and the Slap
It is not easy to say when exactly the current stage of the Ukrainian-Hungarian verbal confrontation began.
On the one hand, it is difficult to underestimate the role of Volodymyr Zelensky.
He unexpectedly arrived at the World Economic Forum in Davos, which has even more unexpectedly become the center of geopolitical discussions about the fate of the world. There, after an hour-long meeting with Donald Trump, Zelensky gave a speech in which he criticized the passivity, inertia and lack of will of his European allies. In this speech, he also mentioned the Hungarian Prime Minister, although without naming him.
"We all see that the forces trying to destroy Europe do not waste a day: they act freely and even work inside Europe itself. Every Viktor who lives off European money, while at the same time trying to sell out European interests, deserves a slap. And if he is comfortable in Moscow, this does not mean at all that we should allow European capitals to turn into small Moscows," Zelensky said.
It is unlikely that Viktor Orban could have left this thinly veiled blow unanswered.
The Quarrel in X
In any case, Viktor Orban personally reacted to Zelensky's Davos speech about "a slap for some Viktor".
"It seems to me that we will not be able to understand each other. I am a free man who serves the Hungarian people. "You are a desperate person who has been unable or unwilling to end the war for four years, despite the US president providing you with every possible assistance," he wrote on the social network X (formerly Twitter).
And after the informal EU summit in Brussels, Orbán added to journalists:
"In the next hundred years, there will be no parliament in Hungary that would vote on Ukraine's membership in the EU."
In Kiev, this statement was perceived painfully: the Ukrainian authorities, at every opportunity, declare that Ukraine could become a member of the European Union as early as 2027.
This probably explains the tone of Orbán's response, published in X by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Szybiga:
"This plan is doomed to failure, Mr. Prime Minister. Your master in Moscow will not last a hundred years, even if you are ready to sacrifice all your organs for him."
To this, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó replied:
"I see that you have already started interfering in our elections. We know that you want a government that says "yes" to Brussels and is ready to drag Hungary into your war. But we will not allow this!"
In response, Andrí Szibiga published a lengthy post in which he accused Viktor Orbán of corruption, compared his place in history to the figure of Ferenc Szalaszi — "Hitler's last ally", executed in Budapest in 1946, and stated that by blocking Ukraine's membership in the EU, Orban primarily harms members of the Hungarian community in Transcarpathia, who are becoming hostages of his geopolitical schemes.
Decisive elections
Today, the verbal conflict between Kiev and Budapest can hardly be considered exhausted. Viktor Orban publishes posts and videos on X almost daily, in which he promises to prevent Ukraine from joining the EU, accuses the Ukrainian leadership of corruption and of seeking to drag Hungary into a "foreign war".
The Ukrainian Foreign Minister calls Orban a threat to his own people and emphasizes that Kiev reserves the right to a proportionate response to unfriendly actions by Budapest. The Ukrainian ambassador to Hungary, Fyodor Sándor, was summoned to the Hungarian Foreign Ministry, after which Péter Szijjártó stated that the Ukrainian government was participating in the Hungarian elections under the brand of the main opposition party "Tisa".
It is probably in the opposition between the ruling Fidesz party and the opposition Tisza that the roots of the current aggravation should be sought.
In April, parliamentary elections will be held in Hungary, which could radically change the political landscape of the country. Since 2010, Viktor Orbán's "Fidesz" has been in power, and during that time Hungary has become an "illiberal democracy" with problems in the judicial system, pressure on freedom of speech and the title of the most corrupt country in the EU according to Transparency International.
However, the current elections are different. The main opponent of "Fidesz" is no longer a fragmented coalition, but a strong center-right party — "Tisza", led by Peter Magyar, a former member of "Fidesz" who left the party in 2024 after a scandal involving the pardon of a man convicted of sexual abuse in a children's home.
Since the summer of last year, Magyar has been touring the Hungarian countryside - a traditional bastion of "Fidesz" - and by early 2026, "Tisza" was leading in opinion polls by about 10 percentage points.
Against the external enemy
"The Fidesz party has traditionally used the image of an "external enemy" in its election campaigns as a means of mobilizing the electorate," Loránd Ötvös, a senior research fellow at the Center for Social Sciences at Budapest University, told the BBC. Csila Fedinec.
In the current campaign, there will apparently be two such "enemies": the collective, anti-Hungarian bureaucracy of the European Union, headed personally by Ursula von der Leyen, and Ukraine — presented as a corrupt, insecure state that constantly demands new financial injections.
The main threat from which Viktor Orbán declares that he will protect the Hungarians with all his might is war — a war in which, according to him, attempts are being made to involve Hungary, both from Brussels and from Kiev. Although the official election campaign has not yet begun, the incumbent prime minister has already presented his party's main slogan for the upcoming elections: "Let's say "NO" to war!" — and builds its entire rhetoric towards voters precisely on anti-war messages.
In this rhetoric of "Fidesz", the Tisza party, which focuses on socio-economic issues and distances itself from foreign policy issues, presents itself not simply as an opponent of the ruling party, but also as a "party under the control of Ukraine".
In the autumn of last year, Viktor Orbán stated that Ukrainian intelligence had gained access to the phones of Hungarians who had installed the "Tisza" party mobile application. The Hungarian opposition rejected these accusations, and the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry stated that Orbán's government was "stirring up unfounded anti-Ukrainian hysteria".
Péter Szijjártó's statement that Kiev would participate in the upcoming Hungarian elections under the "brand" of "Tisza", is obviously of the same order.
At the same time, notes Csila Fedinec, the "Tisza" party in its public rhetoric by no means takes a clearly pro-Ukrainian position. It is possible that this is a strategic decision in order not to alienate numerous voters who - not least under the influence of active propaganda - view Ukraine with skepticism. It is also possible that "Tisza" is not really particularly enthusiastic about supporting Ukraine. In any case, the party leader Peter Magyar has consistently avoided direct statements about the future of relations between Budapest and Kiev if his party wins the elections in April.
"I think this is technology", Serhiy Gerasimchuk tells the BBC. "At the moment, Magyar is actively trying to play on Orbán's electoral field. His message is: I am almost the same as Orban, I just won't steal. That's why he deliberately doesn't emphasize the topic of Ukraine."
Until the elections - no change
Experts and diplomats interviewed by the BBC are unanimous: at least until the day of the Hungarian elections, there is no point in expecting a de-escalation of the rhetoric along the Budapest-Kiev line. The price of these elections is too high for "Fidesz", and the party has already invested significant resources in building its electoral base by mobilizing against the so-called "Ukrainian threat".
In essence, the choice before Kiev comes down to how loudly and sharply to react to the messages coming from Budapest.
"On the one hand, the Ukrainian authorities feel the need to publicly defend their national interests and the rights of their citizens... On the other hand — "Such rhetoric carries the risk of "mirror escalation", in which overly harsh statements can legitimize the fears and insults that "Fidesz" actively instills among its electorate," says Chila Fedinec.
"Ukraine should not stoop to the level of rhetoric that it itself criticizes... In practice, regardless of Kiev's statements, by the end of the election campaign in Hungary their influence on Viktor Orbán's political behavior will remain limited," she summarizes.
In an interview published last week in "Evropeyskaya Pravda", Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Szybiga stated that Ukraine would "respond decisively to any unfriendly actions towards our country".
"The period of diplomatic "indifference" is over," he says at one point. "Although we act proportionately, I don't have time to react to every stupidity", adds Szibiga in response to another question.
"We understand that for Orbán's government the task is simple: to divert the attention of voters from colossal internal problems, corruption and economic failures to invented external factors — "bad" Ukraine and "bad" Brussels. We will not react to these manipulations and attempts by the Orbán government to artificially involve Ukraine in Hungary's domestic politics. "Let them not divert attention from what is happening in their own country," a BBC source in the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry told the BBC.
Is there a "plan B"?
Some BBC interlocutors in expert and diplomatic circles express concern: although the current confrontation between Ukraine and Hungary, which has been going on for several years, was not a conscious choice of Kiev, Viktor Orbán apparently realized at some point that the "Ukrainian card" can be used advantageously in his relations with Brussels, Washington and Moscow (and in the future with Beijing).
Sometimes, however, the impression remains that Kiev has staked everything on Orban's future defeat in the elections and on the assumption that relations with the still not completely clear, but still more pro-European Peter Magyar will be better.
The problem is that, firstly, almost nothing is known about Magyar's real views on relations with Ukraine and, secondly, it is not at all certain that Orban will lose the elections.
Here, both the powerful machine of administrative resources and the specifics of the Hungarian electoral system, practically constructed by "Fidesz" in its own interest, and even the theoretical possibility of the so-called "Romanian scenario", play a role.
The rhetoric of "external intervention" — in this case, Ukrainian - in the elections it may turn out to be that "weapon hanging on the wall", but it may also explode if the campaign plot requires it, a diplomatic source from Ukraine, who requested anonymity, told the BBC.
In any case, the burning of bridges between Kiev and Orban makes many skeptics doubt that Ukraine has a clear plan for how to act towards Budapest if Orban remains in power.
"We are ready for any options", Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Szybiga laconically answers.
Other BBC interlocutors are less confident.
On the one hand, if Orban remains in power, this will undoubtedly create additional difficulties for Ukraine's integration into the EU, says Chila Fedinec.
On the other hand — Kiev sources suggest that Orban, whom Ukrainian diplomats actually identify as the main obstacle on the path to EU membership, may change his position once the pressure of the fateful elections has subsided.
Another factor that could fundamentally change the dynamics of Ukrainian-Hungarian relations is Donald Trump's position, a diplomatic source told the BBC.
It is no secret that Viktor Orban is one of Trump's favorites among European leaders - they share similar ideological positions, the Hungarian prime minister fully supported Trump's concept of a "Peace Council" and his initiatives to end the war in Ukraine.
And this is precisely where, some observers in Kiev believe, may lie an opportunity for Ukraine. According to rumors, one of the elements of Trump's peace plan is accelerated membership of Ukraine in the European Union. If this plan starts to be implemented, it will obviously have to be agreed to by Orban.
"What will Orban do if, as part of a peace settlement, Trump supports Ukraine's immediate membership of the EU? Oh, I would very much like to see that," a BBC source in diplomatic circles in Ukraine tells the BBC.