Kremlin Hotline: How Hungary Coordinates With Russia Blocking Ukraine From the EU

[Emrys]

* Budapest systematically weaponized the issue of Hungarian minority rights in Ukraine to stall EU accession negotiations.

* Péter Szijjártó offered Sergey Lavrov to send EU documents through the Hungarian Embassy in Moscow.

* Hungary and Slovakia, acting as Kremlin friends in the EU, pushed against restrictions of Russian energy supplies.

* Budapest also supported the Kremlin’s “achievements” of the Alaska Summit.

* Leaked audio reveals a strikingly deferential, submissive attitude from Szijjártó toward Lavrov.

* This is the second part of our investigation, you can find the first part here.

On December 14, 2023, at the European Council meeting in Brussels, EU leaders gathered to open accession negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova. They faced strong opposition from one of their own: Hungary. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán had threatened to veto the decision and used the issue as leverage in his disputes with Brussels over more than €22 billion in EU cohesion and recovery funds frozen due to Hungary’s rule-of-law violations.

Orbán, as usual, was accompanied by Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó, who during one of the breaks went out of the meeting room to call his Russian colleague Sergey Lavrov.

“Peter, how are you? I’m doing good,” Lavrov greeted Szijjártó, who dutifully explained how negotiations were going and what Hungary’s plan for the meeting entailed. Lavrov certainly liked what he heard. “Ok, good, yes, yes, excellent,” the Russian said. “Sometimes good-willed direct blackmailing is the best option.”
...
Viktor Orbán left the room during the vote on opening Ukraine’s EU accession talks, part of a pre-arranged move – Germany’s chancellor sent Orbán out of the room for coffee – that allowed the other 26 leaders to adopt the decision unanimously while Hungary abstained, and managed to save face. Szijjártó nevertheless stayed behind to witness the negotiations, keeping the Kremlin abreast with a near-contemporaneous play-by-play.

https://vsquare.org/kremlin-hotline-how-hungary-coordinates-with-russia-blocking-ukraine-from-the-eu/

As the Hungarian general election nears and Vance spreads his treacherous idiocy to Orbán's diminishing number of followers, it looks like if - as widely hoped and anticipated - Orbán loses, Szijjártó, and quite possibly his boss, will need a one-way ticket to Moscow, or perhaps ask to be smuggled out in a Russian diplomatic bag.

[Igel]

1. Sure. But at the risk of making those who defended US farmers against Trump tariffs as being PRC patsies.

Some claims have merit. Some are a free-ride over what Hungary has long thought as essential self-interests.

* Budapest systematically weaponized the issue of Hungarian minority rights in Ukraine to stall EU accession negotiations.

There have been serious fallings out with Slovakia over this issue. They're "besties" I'm told, but Hungary's more than willing to go to the mat for Magyar speakers--and has since the '90s. Meanwhile, note that years ago Budapest kept banging at Ukraine for how it treated Hunguarian speakers in its far west, to the extent of handing out Hungarian passports to Hungarian speakers in an act that Ukraine and many others--long pre-Russian invasion--thought to be encouraging secession.

* Péter Szijjártó offered Sergey Lavrov to send EU documents through the Hungarian Embassy in Moscow

.

This is a problem.

* Hungary and Slovakia, acting as Kremlin friends in the EU, pushed against restrictions of Russian energy supplies

And yet, both get a lot of energy from Russia. Without it, the EU would have trouble supplying it at the same cost and Sk and Hu would both have a lot of public unrest because populace. Note that the closer you are to the USSR, the more dependent you were on the USSR. Slovakia, esp., because the Soviet Socialists dumped a lot of $ in Slovakia's heavy industry--just for the '90s to roll around to tell Slovakia that that investment was in Europe-incompatible or often yielded production far inferior to European standards.

* Budapest also supported the Kremlin’s “achievements” of the Alaska Summit.

* Leaked audio reveals a strikingly deferential, submissive attitude from Szijjártó toward Lavrov.

These are two examples of the same thing. They suck up. Because they are reliant on Russia, still. And Europe's busy messing with their own energy infrastructure so it's not like Europe has a lot to spare. Still, less of a lickspittle would be a good thing.

[Emrys]

2. Thanks. A few points in response:

The issue of Hungarians in Ukraine is a long-standing one, as you say. I do know that Ukraine's parliament has made moves to safeguard the rights of ethnic minorities in recent years, not helped by conditions of war, and it's obvious Orbán doesn't give a fuck about his expatriates and just wants to use them as cannonfodder in a wedge issue, just like his pal Putin's done with the issue of Ukrainian Russian speakers (of which Zelensky was one!).

If Orbán was unhappy about the Druzhba oil pipeline through Ukraine being taken out of action, he should have had a word with his pal Putin, who was responsible for bombing it. With friends like these ...

If he wasn't concerned beforehand about the security of a pipeline running through a war zone, well, he should have been.

If he's impatient that the Ukrainians aren't prioritizing fixing a link in their enemy's major source of income running through their territory while potentially being bombed to oblivion by that same enemy, he needs to damn well get real.

Croatia has offered alterrnative oil supplies via the Adria pipeline that leads from the Omišalj terminal in Croatia to Serbia, Slovenia and Bosnia & Herzegovina, and Hungary, running directly to Hungarian refineries.

Orbán has grumbled and brought up all sorts of excuses why this isn't a solution, as catalogued here:

Fact check: Does Hungary have alternatives to the Druzhba pipeline?

Budapest insists it is dependent on Russian crude oil, but analysts suggest this could be the result of economic and political decisions, as well as technical constraints.
...
Ukrainian officials say the damage was caused by a Russian strike and that repairs are challenging, compounded by the fact that Ukrainian engineers can only work during the day due to nightly air raids.

Hungary, meanwhile, has accused Kyiv of sabotage and dragging its heels on repairing the damage. In the midst of the issue, the European Commission has formally proposed an inspection and fact-finding mission into the incident.

The damage to the line, which carries oil from Russia to various points in Eastern European countries, has once again raised eyebrows about why Hungary continues to rely so heavily on Russian energy when so many other EU members have managed to wean themselves off it.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has long argued that Russian crude is essential for the country's energy security, and that switching supplies would raise costs and harm efficiency.

https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2026/03/31/fact-check-does-hungary-have-alternatives-to-the-druzhba-pipeline

Among Orbán's excuses for why Hungary actually increased its dependency on Russian oil over the last few years from 61% to 93%, against the trend of other EU countries, was that the Adria pipeline charged too much for transit and didn't have sufficient capacity. He's downright lying on both counts (link as above):

According to CSD, transit fees for non-Russian crude imported via this pipeline are lower than those applied to Russian crude oil via the Druzhba pipeline, a difference of €12 per tonne via the Adria pipeline versus €21 per tonne via the Druzhba pipeline.

JANAF insists that the infrastructure has the capacity to meet demand for Hungary and Slovakia.

MOL Group is currently carrying out confirmatory capacity tests on the pipeline, along with plans to improve the pipeline's perfomance, as detailed here: https://molgroup.info/en/media-centre/press-releases/10-month-series-of-capacity-tests-on-the-adria-pipeline-begin-on-march-11 (The linked article also includes a number of quotes from officials involved in Croatian oil transit that bear out much of what I've written above.)

I think there's much more to it than what you seem to be charitably suggesting is understandable sucking up to Putin through expediency, more a question of like minds and brazen opportunism that's served Orbán, but certainly not Hungary, well over the years.

I think it's stretching the bounds of expediency to invite a Kremlin dirty tricks team, including some notorious fixers, into your country to assist your election campaign (I won't mention Vance, but we know his agenda on the EU is close to Putin's), as Orbán's done.

It's also stretching expediency, along with credulity, to continually brand Ukraine as the source of all ills in a Hungary Orbán's been notoriously systematically looting during his time in office and which shares the kudos of being the poorest and most corrupt country in the EU (with Bulgaria) as a result.

I recall recently seeing Orbán being catcalled practically off the stage when he tried to pull some of his ritual Ukraine bashing in front of an outdoor crowd he'd seriously misjudged. It reminded me of Romania and the last days of Ceaușescu.