After Russian missiles began falling on Ukraine in the early hours of 24 February, much of Europe’s media reported the bloody details of Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked all-out attack.
In Hungary, however, the state news agency, the Hungarian Telegraph Office (MTI), took a different line. Instead of using the word “war”, it described a “Russian military operation”, wording close to the Kremlin-mandated phrase special military operation. During the first five days of the war, the influential agency referred to a “Russian military operation” (orosz hadművelet) 431 times, according to Zsuzsanna Wirth, a journalist with the investigative media outlet Direkt36, who has studied how the government controls MTI.
Only after criticism, did MTI begin to use the word “war” in its coverage.
For years Viktor Orbán’s government has been Vladimir Putin’s staunchest ally in the EU, with Kremlin talking points relayed across Hungarian state media. Now the Hungarian government faces a stark choice between Moscow and the EU, although it appears Budapest is trying to have it both ways.
Through a series of leaked memos, Wirth uncovered how the government had long told Hungary’s main news agency what to write, from covering the opposition to the Covid pandemic – and Russia. Sensitive topics were off limits, including the difficulties Russia’s Sputnik vaccine encountered in getting an EU licence, Russia’s loan to fund the expansion of the Paks II nuclear power plant and Putin’s time in quarantine.
When Russia invaded Ukraine, that pro-Kremlin stance came under fire. Opposition politicians organised a demonstration outside the headquarters of the MTVA, the umbrella organisation for Hungarian state TV, radio and the news agency. At another anti-war protest, people shouted “Russians out” at the gates of the Russian-backed International Investment Bank, an institution with Soviet roots that opened a headquarters in Budapest in 2019.
“There was an outrage in Hungary because of how the public media reacted to this war of Russia and there were also protests, real crowds showed up and there were people protesting against the media,” Wirth said. “I think that must have played a role in this switch [calling the invasion a war]. I think they must be more careful than they used to be before. They could do Russian propaganda on public media quite openly, now it’s a bit more difficult for them.”
The message from Orbán was more consistent. The Hungarian prime minister condemned Russia’s “military action” within hours of the invasion, although he declined to criticise Putin personally. Nor did Orbán block EU sanctions, although there was a wobble.
Two days before the invasion, Hungary angered other EU member states when it was not ready to sign up to sanctions against Russia. At a meeting of senior diplomats, Hungary’s representative neither supported, nor opposed the sanctions, pleading the need for further talks with Budapest. “To consult with [the] capital is a pretext of face-saving vis-a-vis the EU and ass-saving vis-a-vis Russia,” one diplomat commented acidly at the time.
After a half-day delay, Hungary fell into line. Orbán was said to be touched by a dramatic appeal for support from Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, at an EU summit. Speaking over video link, Zelenskiy told the leaders it might be the last time they saw him alive. “He [Orbán] is not pretending, he was touched by what is happening. Of course he is not super happy to have to do this, but he is not blocking,” said a senior EU diplomat.
Daniel Hegedüs, a policy analyst at the German Marshall Fund in Berlin, said many people had expected much more trouble from Orbán. Instead, he said, “we were able to see an unexpected realignment with the EU and Nato over Russia over the past couple of weeks.””.
Hungary, however, has declined to support a ban on Russian oil and gas exports, although it is hardly alone. Germany, Bulgaria and other EU member states that depend on Russian fossil fuel flows also oppose an immediate ban on oil and gas exports.
Budapest also did not block EU funding for lethal weapons for Ukraine, although it will not finance such equipment itself, nor let arms pass over its territory. It argued that sending weapons to Ukraine would endanger people in Transcarpathia, a region in western Ukraine with a large Hungarian minority.
Speaking to tens of thousands of flag-waviing supporters on Tuesday, Orbán said Central Europe was only a “chessboard” for big powers and if Hungary did not stand up for its interests, it could easily fall victim of the crisis.
“Russia looks at Russian interests, while Ukraine looks at Ukrainian interests. Neither the United States, nor Brussels would think with Hungarians’ mind and feel with Hungarians’ hearts. We must stand up for our own interests,” Orbán said at an event to mark the start of the 1848-49 revolution, when Hungarian demands for self-determination were brutally crushed by armies sent by the Russian tsar at the behest of ruling Austria.
Hungary’s support for the EU common line was not a surprise to some officials in Brussels. While Budapest has blocked other EU foreign policy decisions, it has never stood in the way of sanctions against Russia. Similarly, talk of Orbán blocking the Brexit process, a move some British commentators believed could help the UK secure a better deal, was never anything more than that: talk.
EU officials believe Orbán is treading a fine line, as Hungarian public opinion swings against Russia in the final weeks of the Hungarian election campaign. Although the united opposition is trailing the government in the polls, Orbán is seen as seeking to avoid criticism of his pro-Russia policy before voting on 3 April. His leading rival, Péter Márki-Zay, a conservative supported by six opposition parties, has accused Orbán of being too accommodating towards Russia and China.
“We only have one choice: we must choose Europe instead of the east and freedom instead of authoritarianism,” Márki-Zay said at an opposition rally on Tuesday.
While Orbán wants to stay on board with the EU and Nato, there is a different message for his domestic audience. The Hungarian state media machine continues to regurgitate Kremlin talking points, while downplaying the brutality of the war. One national security “expert” on state TV compared Zelenskiy to Adolf Hitler; another talking head on Pesti, a private network that receives state funding, said there was no such thing as the Ukrainian people and culture, while the language was just a dialect of Russian.
Both examples were collated by the NGO Átlátszó, which also reported how Hungarian state TV described Russian-controlled territories in east Ukraine as “areas between Russia and Ukraine”, a description that chimes with Moscow’s narrative, although not Hungary’s official policy.
“Hungarian pro-government media, but also public media is still overly dominated by pro-Russian narratives, and even pro-Russian disinformation is prevalent in the Hungarian media space,” Hegedüs said. “Changing the narrative harshly or making a U-turn could pose some very uncomfortable questions to the governing party in the middle of the election campaign, which they would like to avoid.”
