The recent last-minute conditional support by Hungary for extending EU sanctions against Russia was just the latest example of a long history of disputes between Brussels and Budapest about policy towards Moscow. Ever since Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán came to power in 2010, much of Europe has been accusing his subsequent governments of cosying up to Moscow. Some critics trace the Hungarian leader’s supposedly friendly approach to Russia to a 15-minute-long meeting between Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orbán in St. Petersburg in November 2009.
For many of Orbán’s opponents, the meeting still holds an almost mystical significance, as if the previously staunchly anti-Russian Hungarian political leader had suddenly and inexplicably undergone a Pauline conversion. On the contrary, the change in the Hungarian right-wing leader’s foreign policy perspective was not the result of a fifteen-minute conversation with Putin, but of international developments over the previous fifteen months. The roots of the change in Orbán’s outlook should be sought not in Moscow or St. Petersburg, but in the capitals of Hungary’s Western allies.
2009 was not the first time that Viktor Orbán had to learn that uncritical compliance with Western, and especially American, wishes can come at a high cost for Hungary. A salient example is his experience during NATO’s 1999 war against Yugoslavia, when, as the air campaign didn’t bring about Milosevic’s swift capitulation, Washington began to consider the option of a NATO ground invasion from Hungary—a country that had officially become a full NATO member only a week before the war began. Orbán refused, because it was clear that allowing an attack from Hungary would drag the country into a direct war with Yugoslavia, threaten the safety of the Hungarian minority in northern Serbia, and severely damage Hungarian–Serbian relations for decades to come. Fortunately, the ground war never took place, but the episode was a lesson that Orbán never forgot.
Another, perhaps even less analysed experience, was the Bush administration’s response to 9/11. Although the Orbán government was among the first to invoke NATO’s Article Five on 12 September 2001, it was clear early on that, from the American perspective, “the mission will define the coalition, not the alliance.” This meant that European security interests would not be taken into account in the “war on terror,” as the disastrous consequences of the Iraq war later showed. The Hungarian conservative side never really supported the “democracy export” agenda, seeing it as American hubris rather than good intentions.
Fast forward to 2008, when NATO’s Bucharest Summit put the future membership of Ukraine and Georgia on the agenda. Under pressure from the Bush administration, the allies’ final summit declaration included the prospect of Ukraine and Georgia one day becoming NATO members, but the Franco-German tandem managed to avoid setting a concrete timetable for this.
From the Kremlin’s point of view, however, the West had already gone too far, with Russia repeatedly making clear that Ukrainian NATO membership was a definite red line. Tensions between Russia and Georgia over the status of Abkhazia and South Ossetia continued to escalate throughout 2008 and, following some bold military moves by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, Russian troops entered Georgian territory in early August 2008. However, the West did little to force Moscow to back down and de facto recognised the new status quo in the Caucasus, signalling that its geopolitical priorities lay elsewhere. The episode reinforced the Hungarian PM’s notion that NATO would not be willing to risk it all for Ukraine and Georgia.
Weeks after the outbreak of war in Georgia came the global financial crisis. Confidence in the strength of the U.S. economy was shaken and Washington was unable to stabilise the international financial system on its own—or with its close allies. The only solution was the creation of the G20, which included the emerging powers of the Global South. Faith in the “Washington consensus” waned, while China’s global power received a huge boost.
At the same time, Barack Obama was elected President of the United States. The new Obama administration announced a ‘reset’ with Moscow in March 2009 and then, without any prior consultation, abruptly terminated the Bush administration’s Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Poland and the Czech Republic on 17 September 2009, the anniversary of the signing of the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Perhaps not unrelatedly, Putin visited Poland in the autumn of 2009, where he spoke with unusual frankness about the Polish victims of the 1939 Katyn massacre.. The following months saw a previously unthinkable rapprochement between Warsaw and Moscow.
By then, Germany had been working for years on the construction of the first North Stream pipeline. Meanwhile, the construction of a new pipeline—Nabucco—which would have made Central Europe, including Hungary, less independent of Russian energy seemed to have reached a dead end, not least because of the disinterest or objections of certain major Western powers. In addition, Hungary and Central Europe were threatened in early 2009 with the third gas supply cut in three years as a result of the ‘gas war’ between Russia and Ukraine.
Considering all these developments, it is no wonder that Orbán, then an opposition leader, began to recalibrate his foreign policy, setting the stage for an eastward opening. This policy was not meant to cut Hungary off from the West, but simply to join the Western competition for Eastern markets and investments.
Fast forward to the present, and the approach to the West and Russia reflects a similar pattern. Until very recently—anyone remember President Zelensky’s Victory Plan?—it was anathema to talk about negotiations and possible concessions to Moscow on any of the ten points of the Zelensky Peace Formula. Hungary was basically the only one to dare do it from day one after Russia’s full-scale aggression in 2022. Now all the talk in Davos was about the need for a “just and lasting peace,” a much more flexible term, not to mention other more honest comments about Ukraine’s military prospects.
To sum it up, contrary to popular Western narratives, Hungary’s approach to the war was never based on sympathy for Putin. Perhaps even more surprising to many, Hungary’s dependence on Russian energy—or other economic interests—was not the most decisive factor either, although it clearly played a significant role. So unlike the famous reason for Clinton’s victory over Bush in 1992 – “it’s the economy, stupid” – in Hungary’s case, it was geopolitical realities. Because of Russia’s size, its “friends” (China, North Korea, Iran), and its nuclear arsenal, a complete Ukrainian victory was never a question of some additional Western military support. It was either NATO going all in, risking nuclear war, or some kind of a painful settlement. Despite its considerable support for Ukraine, it was clear that the West didn’t see the war as existential to its security, just as back in 2008. It is a tragedy that up until recently, among Western governments, it was only the Hungarian leadership that had the courage to adjust policy to this reality. All hopes are now focused on President Trump that he is able to make up for lost time with his skills and American leverage.
