Viktor Orbán and Ukraine's sovereignty: only a tool in a domestic political game

The more strained relations between Hungary and Ukraine become over the next six months, the better it will be for Orbán.

The key to understanding Viktor Orbán's comment about Ukraine's sovereignty is in Hungarian domestic politics. Hungary is going to hold parliamentary elections most likely in April 2026, so a bit more than six months from now. First time since his return to power in 2010, Viktor Orbán now faces a strong challenger, Péter Magyar. Orbán does so, when Hungary's economy is in shambles, partially due to structural problems, partially due to massive, systemic, Yanukovich-style corruption, and mostly because of lost access to EU fund.

The European Union, citing concerns about role of law in Hungary has suspended the payment of most EU funds to Budapest in 2022. Since then, based on the consumption of household according to Eurostat data, Hungary has become the poorest country of the European Union. Public services are breaking down, health care and education sectors are critically underfinanced, and there is no improvement in sight.

DOMESTIC POLITICAL LOGIC IS DOMINATING

In this context, ahead of the elections, Orbán needs to offer something to his voters. Welfare is not a credible offer anymore, nor is the promise of it. Instead, since 2022 Orbán has started using the concept of national sovereignty as a rhetorical ultima ratio of his policies. Orbán is absolutizing the value of sovereignty in order to justify all his actions both at home and abroad. While de facto parts of Hungary's sovereignty have been formally handed over to the European Commission by Budapest joining the EU in 2004, so Hungary is not sovereign either, in the context of the election campaign, perceptions often matter more than facts.

Hence, Orbán is trying to re-frame the European criticism over the rule of law - situation by claiming that the European Union intends to destroy Hungary's sovereignty and funds are suspended only because Hungary is standing up for her sovereignty. Along the similar logic, his government regularly labels opposition politicians and independent media as enemies of Hungary's sovereignty. The Orbán-government even set up a separate Sovereignty Protection Office, de jure to help defend Hungary's sovereignty against external threat, but de facto to keep accusing the opposition of being agents of the West.

His policies vis-a-vis Ukraine also need to be interpreted in the context of the upcoming elections. During the previous elections, in April 2022, he campaigned by accusing the opposition of willing to send soldiers into the war (even though this was never really the case), while positioned himself as a pro-peace player willing to keep Hungary out of the war -  and this won him the biggest victory ever.

Besides, he rightly realized that supporting Ukraine is crucially important for most of the EU members. Hence, by blocking or hampering this support he can actually have a leverage in his conflict with the European Union. In other words, by making the EU support to Ukraine more complicated, Orbán de facto intends to get various concessions from the European Union.

In addition, he is using the Ukraine-card also in his relationship with Russia, hoping that harming Ukraine may strengthen his positions in Moscow, resulting in lucrative energy-related business opportunities. One may say that by often representing Russia's interests about Ukraine in the EU, Orbán has been trying to get concessions both from Moscow and from Brussels. This is in line with the extremely transactional nature of the foreign policy of the Hungarian government.

THE UKRAINE-POLICY IS A TOOL, NOT AN OBJECTIVE

In this context, Ukraine is tool for him, not an objective. The Orbán-government uses Ukraine as a tool to secure domestic political gains as well as economic benefits both from the EU and Russia at the same time. He hopes to get economic benefits from Brussels by blackmail and from Russia by representing Moscow's interests.

Besides, he regularly accuses Western-oriented opposition of being 'agents of Ukraine' or 'serving Ukraine's interests instead of Hungary's interests'. Creating false dichotomies is an old, classic populistic policy tool, so in such terms there is not much new under the sun.

Accusing Ukraine of not being a sovereign country or saying that Kyiv has already lost the war is part of the same game. He uses these narratives to justify his blocking position inside the European Union and, at the same time, to secure economic - and possibly also political - benefits from Moscow too, by pleasing the Kremlin.

Of course, accusing Ukraine of not being a sovereign country makes no sense in terms of content. But instead of content, it is the context that matters, namely the upcoming parliamentary election. Until then, so in the upcoming 6,5 months Hungary's position vis-a-vis Ukraine is extremely unlikely to become any softer or any more cooperative.

ORBÁN TRIES TO INSTRUMENTALIZE UKRAINE-RELATED TENSIONS BOTH AT HOME AND ABROAD

 In fact, the opposite is likely. Orbán will continue instrumentalizing Ukraine both in order to gain concessions from both Brussels and Moscow and also to demonize and discredit his opposition ahead of the upcoming elections. The more tense Hungary-Ukraine relations are going to become in the upcoming six months, the better it is for Orbán, because the false dichotomy of accusing the opposition of serving Ukraine's interests instead of Hungary's interests just works better and better.

In other words, in the short run the Orbán-government appears to be interested more in heightening tensions vis-a-vis Ukraine than in settling them, because more tensions can be better instrumentalized both at home and abroad. Besides, if Orbán can provoke Ukraine into any major political or economic escalation in bilateral tensions, from then on he would have the legitimate reason within the EU to continue blocking Kyiv's EU-accession process. The recent outrageous remarks, as well as the drone flights and the banning of Ukrainian media outlets all served the same purpose.

One may only hope that decision-makers in Kyiv have already successfully deciphered this strategy of Orbán and will not fall for any future provocations, even if refraining from any harder action may be somewhat inconvenient in domestic politics.

András Rácz is Senior Fellow of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP).

The views presented here are his own.