Viktor Orbán is a fervent defender of Hungarian minorities abroad. But he never condemned the Russian airstrike on a western Ukrainian city that is also home to many ethnic Hungarians. Is he making strategic calculations?
Recently, Viktor Orbán portrayed a death in Ukraine as an attack on the entire Hungarian nation. It involved a soldier of Hungarian origin, a resident of the western Ukrainian region of Zakarpattia, where a Hungarian minority also lives. The man died in hospital under circumstances that remain unclear to this day, after he had previously deserted from a military training camp. For Orbán, his government and his party, the case is a state-sanctioned murder.
Now, however, something has happened in Transcarpathia that can be defined to a much greater extent as an attack on the Hungarian nation. But this time the country's leadership reacted with restraint. We are talking about the major Russian air attack on Ukraine last Thursday, August 21 - then Russia fired two missiles at the western Ukrainian city of Mukachevo, where many ethnic Hungarians live. But the Hungarian leadership did not condemn the attack at all.
The missiles hit a factory of the American company “Flex” for the production of household appliances and partially destroyed it. According to its own and official Ukrainian data, the factory has civilian production and employs about 2,800 people. More than 20 of them were seriously injured in the attack. Mukachevo has about 85,000 inhabitants, nine percent of whom are ethnic Hungarians.
How the term "Russian" is disappearing
Hungarian President Tamás Szujók expressed on Facebook his "deep sympathy for those injured in the Russian missile strike". Shortly after, the term "Russian" disappeared from the post. Viktor Orbán reacted only hours later, writing on Facebook that during a government meeting "the consequences of the Russian missile strike on Mukachevo were discussed". At the same time, he noted that efforts for peace should continue.
The opposition public in Hungary was outraged that the prime minister and his apparatus had been unfairly accusing Ukraine for years of seeking to destroy the identity and culture of the Hungarian minority, and had not condemned the Russian attack on Mukachevo with a single word. A wave of anger erupted on social media against the “cowardly president” and the “double standards of the Kremlin-loyal government”.
The leader of the Hungarian opposition, Péter Magyar, called the president “a puppet”. Political scientist Zoltan Lackner wrote on Facebook that the Hungarian president's reactions show "how far the country's sovereignty is from Putin - it doesn't exist at all."
Ukrainian political scientist and expert on European right-wing extremism Anton Shekhovtsov told DW that the way the Hungarian government reacted to the attack was not surprising. "Despite being an EU member, Hungary under Orban is a pro-Russian regime and has long been conducting anti-Ukrainian campaigns."
The latest pro-Russian-anti-Ukrainian episode in Orban's Hungary is yet another example of this. In recent months, Orban has waged an extremely harsh public campaign against Ukraine and its membership in the Community. During the campaign, the neighboring country and its citizens were called a mafia state with a criminal population.
Currently, relations between Hungary and Ukraine have reached a new low due to the attacks by the Ukrainian army on the Russian oil pipeline "Druzhba". Hungary defines them as a declaration of war against it and against the European Union, since the destruction of the oil pipeline posed a threat to European energy security.
What is being done to protect minorities?
Orbán's pro-Russian orientation has deep roots. At the moment, however, it is mostly about the domestic political situation in Hungary. In the elections that are coming up in the spring of next year, the prime minister is threatened with losing power. Therefore, one of his election themes is to present himself as an anti-war politician, to demonize "militancy" of the EU and to incite hatred against Ukraine and Ukrainians.
However, the silence regarding Russian attacks on civilian targets in Transcarpathia may turn out to be a mistake in domestic politics. Orbán has declared himself and his government to be the supreme defender of Hungarian minorities living in neighboring countries. But in the case of Mukachevo, Orbán's pro-Russian orientation clashes with claims to protect Hungarian minorities.
In Transcarpathia, ethnic Hungarians had previously believed that the region was safe from Russian attacks, as Orbán had argued for it to Russian President Putin. But that narrative has now collapsed. There were two drone attacks on the region in 2023 and 2024, which were not as severe as the last one.
Loyal to Putin
Orbán’s failure to condemn the Russian attack may have alienated Ukrainian Hungarians, not only among them but also among their compatriots in Slovakia and Romania. Romanian Hungarians had previously felt offended by Orbán after he called for a vote for the far-right and anti-Hungarian presidential candidate Gheorghe Simion in May of this year. - believing that as head of state he would be his ally in the EU.
Orban's sacrificing the interests of the Hungarian minority in Ukraine to demonstrate loyalty to Putin could also represent a long-term strategic calculation - so that Transcarpathia can one day become Hungarian again. Political scientist Shekhovtsov does not believe that Hungary would undertake military intervention for this purpose. “But Orban hopes that Ukraine as a state will collapse. In this case, the region can be conquered without a fight - as happened with the Hitler-induced disintegration of Czechoslovakia in 1938/39."