Ukrainians were inhumane people and ruthless criminals. They would take away the jobs, incomes, pensions and health of Hungarians. With a slanderous campaign, Orban is instilling hatred against Ukraine. Why?
The lid opens and in the trunk of the car, a tied-up young man is seen writhing, performing learned movements with obviously poor choreography. Standing next to the trunk is a woman - Alexandra Szentkirály, a former spokeswoman for the Hungarian government, and now the most famous propagandist of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on social networks. "I don't think you want this to happen to you, because with Ukraine's rapid accession to the EU, so too come the traffickers of organs, weapons, drugs and people," she says.
The video, posted on Facebook and TikTok, is ten seconds long. For over two months now, Hungarians have been inundated with similar content - both on the internet and on Hungarian television channels loyal to the government. For weeks, anti-Ukrainian advertisements have been constantly broadcast on radio stations, and public space in Hungary has been flooded with posters depicting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky looking angry and threatening.
This is not the first time Orbán has waged a campaign of smear and hatred. But this is the first one directed against an entire country, declared a "mafia state". The first against the citizens of a country, who are presented as inhumane people, dangerous and ruthless criminals who would generate trafficking in organs, people, drugs, weapons and genetically modified foods and take away the jobs, incomes, pensions and health of Hungarians.
The results are difficult to verify
The aim of the campaign was to get Hungarians to declare themselves against Ukraine's membership in the EU. Voting ended last Saturday (June 21), and on Thursday, just before the start of the EU summit in Brussels, Orbán personally announced the result. According to him, nearly 2.3 million Hungarians (about a third of Hungarian voters) took part in the survey, with 95% of them declaring themselves against Ukraine's membership in the EU. This gave Orbán reason to claim that he came to Brussels "with a strong mandate" – with the votes of over two million Hungarians, he can say that he does not support Ukraine's accession to the EU.
However, are these results real or not? As with all of Orbán's previous similar campaigns, such as those against migrants or against the American stock market billionaire of Hungarian-Jewish origin George Soros, this cannot be verified. Because the Hungarian government does not allow independent monitoring of the election process or an independent public vote count. In a similar survey, recently organized by the largest Hungarian opposition party "Tisa", 58% of Hungarians surveyed supported Ukraine's membership in the EU.
A letter to the Ukrainian people
The numerous reactions among the Hungarian public show that a significant part of Hungarians consider Orbán's campaign to be exaggerated, fake, deceitful or a maneuver to divert attention. Some videos, in particular the video of Alexandra Szentkirály with the man tied up in the trunk of a car, have become a template for hundreds of ironic or sarcastic memes on social media, mocking the propaganda and corruption scandals in Orbán's system. Numerous posts on social media, including critical comments on Viktor Orbán's Facebook and TikTok channels, also show that many Hungarians consider the Hungarian Prime Minister's anti-Ukrainian campaign to be morally reprehensible or a lie.
A few days ago, 50 prominent Hungarian figures - scientists, artists, publicists and former politicians and high-ranking civil servants, including former Foreign Minister Geza Jesensky and former President of the National Bank Peter Akos Bod, published a "Letter to the Ukrainian People" condemning Orbán's propaganda and expressing their solidarity with Ukraine.
Orbán and his government are unlikely to make a U-turn in their anti-Ukrainian policy. Orbán's government and propaganda apparatus are unlikely to soften their tone or abandon some of their narratives - such as that the war crimes in Bucha were staged by the Ukrainian army. Ukraine has meanwhile become a leading issue in the election campaign for the parliamentary elections in the spring of 2026.
The opposition party "Tisza", which is currently ahead of Orban's "Fidesz" party in the opinion polls, has been vilified by the ruling majority as a political force paid by Ukraine and Brussels. The goal was to seize power in Hungary and sell the country out and drag it into war against Russia. Orban's propaganda calls "Tisza" leader Peter Magyar "the Ukrainian Petty" and accuses another prominent politician from "Tisza" - the former Chief of the Hungarian General Staff Romulus Rusin-Sendy - of being a Ukrainian spy, without any evidence. Media loyal to Orban claim that within the "Tisza" party itself, the Ukrainian greeting "Glory to Ukraine!" has become a party slogan.
Relations are irreparably damaged
It is clear that with this policy Orbán is irreparably damaging Hungarian-Ukrainian relations. Until recently, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the Ukrainian government were silent about Orbán's policy or commented on it only cautiously and diplomatically. However, this has changed.
In his first interview with a Hungarian media outlet, the independent conservative portal Valasz Online, Zelensky criticized Orbán for using Ukraine for his election campaign in early June. "He does not understand that this will have much more serious and dangerous consequences - radicalization of people and anti-Ukrainian sentiment in Hungarian society." "By not supporting Ukraine, Orbán is doing a favor for Russian President Vladimir Putin," he said, calling it a "huge historical mistake."
Now, for the first time, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has explicitly criticized the anti-Ukrainian campaign: it has described the campaign as driven by "manipulative intentions." In the months-long campaign, Hungarian officials have "invented non-existent threats, allegedly coming from Ukraine, to intimidate Hungarian citizens," the text says. The aim of the "anti-Ukrainian hysteria" is to distract attention from the country's own failures. "However, we are convinced that the vast majority of Hungarian citizens are able to recognize this primitive manipulation," the foreign ministry's position also states.