KYIV — Ukraine has expressed relief at the political turn in Budapest, but the feeling may not last long.
Despite Viktor Orbán’s landslide loss to Péter Magyar in Sunday’s Hungarian national election, officials in Kyiv are under no illusion that the two countries will suddenly become allies after years of worsening relations.
Magyar’s victory represented a clear defeat for Moscow, which had backed Orbán for years, and was celebrated in Kyiv as a sign that the €90 billion in EU funds blocked by Budapest could finally be released. But when it comes to finding common ground with Hungary’s incoming government, Kyiv anticipates a long and slow road ahead.
“The choice of the Hungarians marked the defeat of the policy of blackmail and anti-Ukrainian propaganda,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said in a statement on Monday.
“[But] I also want to set realistic expectations for Ukrainians. There is painstaking, pragmatic and calm work ahead to find common ground, restore mutual respect and implement common pragmatic interests,” he added. “We will work to restore good neighborliness in the interests of our two countries and Europe as a whole.”
Turning the page
Magyar has never expressed anti-Ukrainian views; on the contrary, he has supported humanitarian aid to Kyiv since the start Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, and has consistently declared Russia as the aggressor.
“Everyone in Hungary knows that Ukraine is the victim in this war,” Magyar told a press conference on Monday, adding that no one has the right to decide peace terms on behalf of Ukraine’s citizens.
On the other hand, he has opposed an accelerated accession process for Ukraine to the EU, and has said Budapest won’t contribute to the EU’s stalled €90 billion loan to Kyiv.
So what can Kyiv expect from the new guard in Budapest?
There was certainly no love lost between Orbán and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy: The defeated Hungarian PM repeatedly claimed Zelenskyy wanted to draw Hungary into its war with Moscow, and blocked Kyiv’s EU aspirations and financial aid while openly siding with Russia.
Zelenskyy threatened Orbán in return, and once even suggested he would give the Hungarian leader’s contact number to the Ukrainian armed forces, drawing a rare rebuke from Brussels as well as from Magyar.
Magyar’s election, meanwhile, “is an opportunity to open a new chapter in our relations with Hungary” because the results represent “a strategic defeat for the Kremlin, which was counting on the creation of an anti-Ukrainian coalition in the EU led by Orban,” said Oleksandr Merezhko, head of the Ukrainian parliament’s foreign relations committee.
But it certainly won’t all be smooth sailing.
First, the good news for Kyiv and Brussels: Magyar has signaled he won’t block the EU’s €90 billion loan to Ukraine, which had been frozen since the start of the year by Orbán at the European Council — although Hungary still won’t contribute to the credit line.
But repairing the Druzhba pipeline, which used to bring Russian crude across Ukraine to Hungary and Slovakia, may prove a thornier issue. Kyiv had maintained the critical pipeline was severely damaged in January by a Russian attack, but Orbán insisted it was operational and that Zelenskyy was intentionally cutting off Russian oil flows to blackmail Hungary. Zelenskyy denied the charge, but has promised Brussels he will repair it soon if the €90 billion funding stream is unblocked.
That vow, in turn, opens another can of worms. The Ukrainian public (and Zelenskyy himself) opposes renewing Russian oil flows that would boost the Kremlin’s finances. Magyar, meanwhile, says that Hungary will rely on Russian oil and gas “for some time” to come.
The Brussels bonanza
Another disappointment for Kyiv could be a lack of support from Budapest for fast-track Ukrainian accession to the EU. Magyar has previously said he doesn’t support the idea, given that the rules say all countries need to meet the bloc’s accession criteria before being invited to join. Ukraine, meanwhile, sees fast-track accession as a security guarantee it has earned through its wartime sacrifices, and wants Brussels to set a concrete date.
At a Monday press conference Magyar said the topic of Ukraine’s accelerated EU accession was still academic, as “the country is still at war,” but that if it became a live issue he would put the decision to a referendum.
As for easy wins, Ukraine might look to recover the €35 million in cash and 9 kilograms of gold Hungarian authorities seized in March from a van belonging to Ukraine’s state-owned Oshchadbank as it was transiting the country. Budapest said it had foiled a money laundering operation, a claim Kyiv denied.
“We hope that the recent political events in Hungary will allow us to return the issue of our illegally detained funds,” said Yurii Katsion, Oshchadbank board chairman.
Magyar has yet to comment on the seizure.
What Péter Magyar’s victory in Hungary means for Ukraine
Source: Viral Showbiz Pinay
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