Hungarian government takes anti-Ukraine fearmongering to new heights
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban released an AI-generated video on his social media depicting bombed-out buildings, bloody battlefield scenes and rows of coffins, suggesting that Hungary could be drawn into the conflict in Ukraine.
The video promotes the Voks2025, a non-binding referendum on Ukraine's EU accession. So far, more than 2mn have responded in mail or online, but these data can hardly be verified.
Orban casts the vote as a nationalist defence against a "pro-Ukrainian" opposition, linking opposition figures to Brussels and portraying EU policy working in tandem with Kyiv as undermining Hungary's sovereignty.
The caption under the new AI video reads: "We don't want our children coming home in coffins. Vote no". The post includes no disclaimer indicating that the footage is computer-generated.
Viktor Orban has intensified his campaign against Ukraine's EU accession, warning that Brussels' pro-Kyiv stance threatens Hungary's economic stability and energy security. In a series of high-profile interventions ahead of next year's election, the veteran leader has portrayed EU enlargement as a zero-sum game that would divert funding from existing members and saddle Hungary with an additional HUF800bn (€2bn) annual burden.
Ukraine's EU access could double electricity prices and more than triple household gas bills, framing this scenario as a direct cost of living crisis, according to Orban.
Since the referendum's announcement, state media and government officials have also repeatedly equated EU enlargement with security risks, portraying Ukraine as a "Trojan horse" that could draw Hungary into military conflict.
In recent posts, the Hungarian premier escalated his rhetoric, saying that Hungarian soldiers could be drawn into the conflict and Budapest does not want to see their dead bodies returning in coffins.
Tensions between Budapest and Kyiv have spilled into diplomacy after Ukraine uncovered a Hungarian spy network in the western part of the country in early May. The episode led to the suspension of bilateral talks on minority rights in Transcarpathia, underscoring the wider political stakes at play.
This weekend marked a new nadir for the Hungarian government's anti-Ukrainian rhetoric when Alexandra Szentkiralyi, head of Fidesz's Budapest wing, posted a Facebook video showing a tied-up man in a car boot. Szentkiralyi used the footage to warn of increased human trafficking, drug smuggling and organ trading should Ukraine be granted EU membership.
With just five days left until the Voks2025 vote, and almost ten months until the next general election, the government's anti-Ukraine campaign shows no signs of abating, writes independent 444.hu, which warns of the uncertain consequences ahead.
While Orban was doubling down on his hate campaign, he also took time to polish his image as the leader of transition, releasing a long post on social media in honour of the 36th anniversary of the reburial of Imre Nagy, the prime minister who was executed after the Soviets crushed the 1956 revolution. June 16 also marks the 34th anniversary of the withdrawal of the last Soviet troops from the country.
As the young leader of the newly established, liberal and anti-Communist Fidesz party, Viktor Orban delivered a fiery and defiant speech at the ceremony on June 16, 1989.
In front of a massive crowd, he boldly demanded the immediate withdrawal of Soviet troops from Hungary, a statement that no other speaker at the ceremony dared to make directly. The moment became a turning point in Orban's political career, catapulting him into the national spotlight and cementing his image as a fearless, outspoken rebel figure willing to challenge the Soviet empire.
In his Facebook posts, Hungary's veteran leader recalls that in "1989 the Russians had to be sent home so we could be free. It took great courage back then, and it takes courage today, too, to remain free. Empires come and go; we will not run away", he said while equating the former USSR to the EU.
Political analysts point out that Orban wants to take credit for "ousting Russian troops," from Hungary; however, nothing could be further from reality.
Formal negotiations on the departure of Soviet forces had already begun in the spring of 1989 under Hungary's reform communists, led by Prime Minister Miklos Nemeth. The talks culminated in the agreement signed in Moscow by Foreign Minister Gyula Horn and his Soviet counterpart Eduard Shevardnadze in March 1990. Horn is widely regarded as playing an instrumental role in the fall of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), after opening Hungary's border with Austria to tens of thousands of East Germans fleeing the country in September 1989.
Before the reburial, Miklos Nemeth explicitly asked the organisers not to bring up the issue of Soviet troops stationed in Hungary, but Viktor Orban defied the request, seizing the moment to publicly demand their withdrawal.
Critics in the comments on his Facebook post have confronted Orban with his hypocrisy, accusing him of repudiating his former self and turning against everything he once stood for: systematically dismantling democratic institutions, rejecting Western liberal values and becoming a servant of Russian interests.
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