Orbán secretly travels to Kyiv for talks with Zelensky

According to Telex's information, no agreement will be signed and no joint press conference is planned – indicating the limitations of the two countries' relations at the highest level, even though the meeting of the two leaders is clearly a milestone. The meeting may have been prompted in part by Orbán's isolation from potential allies in the EU due to his policy on Ukraine, as well as Hungary's six-month presidency of the EU, for which to be successfully completed, he needs to improve his image in the EU, as he is currently seen as mostly pro-Russian. The Guardian has reported the same, citing several anonymous sources.

Update: Shortly after the articles about Orbán's visit to Kyiv were published, Bertalan Havasi, the Prime Minister's press chief, confirmed the meeting in a statement from the Ukrainian capital. He wrote: "The most important topic of the meeting is the prospect for establishing peace. Viktor Orbán and Volodymyr Zelensky will also discuss current issues in Hungarian-Ukrainian bilateral relations".

Havasi did not give any further details, and based on diplomatic sources, Telex understands that there are no plans for signing an agreement. Although at the last government briefing, Gergely Gulyás said that "Orbán and Zelensky will not sit down together for the sake of a photo". On 13 June, the Minister of the Prime Minister's Office still felt that there was no issue on which the Ukrainian President and Viktor Orbán could agree. Nevertheless, even though the two leaders are not sitting down for the sake of the photographers, and for now it seems that there will be no joint press conference after the talks either, given the past ten-years of frosty relations between the two countries, the meeting could produce some concrete results even without an agreement being signed.

Viktor Orbán's visit to Kyiv comes some 28 months after Russia attacked Ukraine. Meanwhile, the country, which is defending itself from Russian aggression with Western backing, has received visits from all the major leaders of the Western world, with the Maltese and Cypriot prime ministers being the only EU leaders apart from Orbán, not to have visited the Ukrainian capital. Within two months of the attack, all of Ukraine's EU neighbours had already held talks in Kyiv and visited Bucha, near the capital, where the Russian army committed war crimes against civilians during the month-long occupation, killing hundreds of people. Bucha was also what broke Polish-Hungarian intergovernmental relations: despite being an ally of Orbán's, the leader of Poland's ruling party Law and Justice (PiS) at the time, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, said that Orbán should visit an ophthalmologist as it seemed to him that the Hungarian Prime Minister was in no hurry to condemn Russia over the events in Bucha.

The relationship did not sour when the war began

Relations between Ukraine and Hungary have been frosty for ten years. After President Viktor Yanukovych, who was far too close with Moscow, fled to Russia to escape the wave of Maidan protests, which the armed forces tried to crush, but the sight of civilian casualties only added momentum to the protests, the new leadership, with the support of parliament, changed the language law. With this, the Ukrainian government intended to curb the use of the Russian language, but the law also affected the minorities living in Ukraine's Transcarpathian region. The Hungarian government was the most vocal opponent of the amendments, saying they would make Hungarian-language education in Transcarpathia impossible. Thus, the dispute likely benefited Moscow even before the war.

Following Russia's occupation of Crimea in 2014 and the creation of Moscow-backed separatist republics in eastern Ukraine, Ukraine turned even more strongly towards strengthening the Ukrainian language, and there was no tangible willingness on Kyiv's part to settle the issue of the legislation and to ensure that the minority languages could be used in accordance with Hungarian demands. In his inaugural speech in 2014, Orbán spoke about the right of self-determination of the Hungarian population of the Carpathian Basin, which – even though the Prime Minister did not mention Transcarpathia – blew the fuse in Kyiv. The language did indeed signal a change, since previously, in 2012, when speaking about the Hungarian minority, Orbán said that "the Kyiv leadership has a good approach to the Hungarian minority, there is no issue that couldn't be resolved." Until then, he had not spoken about autonomy – although even then, in 2014, he did not say that he meant territorial autonomy.

Taking things to an international level

The Hungarian government then took the debate to an international level, seizing the opportunity to – as a member of NATO and the EU – influence the aspirations of Ukraine for Euro-Atlantic integration. For a long time, Hungary did not agree to holding ministerial-level meetings of the NATO-Ukraine Commission. "We are under great pressure to give up this position. If we gave it up, we would have no other resources to act in the interests of the Hungarian ethnic minority," the official government website quoted Foreign Minister Szijjártó as saying.

The situation did not change with Zelensky's election, although the actor-turned-president, who was elected by a large margin, especially in the country's eastern and western regions and is otherwise a native Russian speaker, had intended to reach an agreement and there was even a possibillity that his first trip would be to Hungary. In the end, this did not happen, and as time went by, the president began to rely more and more on nationalist forces, and neither Kyiv nor Budapest seemed to mind the tension.

After 24 February 2022, however, when Russia's invasion against Ukraine started, these disputes took on a completely different context.

The Hungarian government still continued to take the same line, its stance still defined by objections to the part of the education law affecting language use, only now it added what it described as a pro-peace policy, opposing aiding Ukraine with arms shipments, and even objecting to other countries doing so, and then refusing to allow such shipments to pass through its territory on the way to Ukraine. Which, in reality has no practical significance, since there is no geographic justification for transporting supplies across the Carpathians instead of through the flat Polish-Ukrainian border. The statement had more of a political weight, and was therefore seen abroad as a gesture towards Moscow, an indication that there is no total unity in the EU and NATO on supporting Ukraine.

In case of the latter, this was most evident in the slow approval of Finnish and Swedish accession. While 30 NATO members approved their accession by the autumn of 2022, Turkey and Hungary delayed ratification until March 2023 for the Finns, and waited until February this year for the Swedes, with the Hungarian parliament making its decision a whole month after the Turkish approval. The Swedes, by the way, had intended to provide Gripen aircraft to Ukraine, but would have done so only as a NATO member. By the time Sweden had become a member, Ukraine was already in the process of procuring F-16s, so the issue was taken off the agenda, but it is certain that the delay in reinforcing the Ukrainian air force was good for Russia, which took over the initiative on the front line again in autumn 2023.

Some fist-pumping, but very little punching

Apart from this, the Hungarian government's loud declarations of opposition did not prevent Ukraine from receiving help from the West, and Orbán did not veto the most crucial decisions. This was true in case of the EU sanctions against Russia as well as when Ukraine was granted candidate status last summer. He has, however, constantly criticized But he has been a constant critic of the sanctions, saying that the EU has shot itself in the foot with them and that the restrictions are not working, although this is contradicted by the fact that Vladimir Putin has repeatedly called for the sanctions to be lifted.

The Hungarian government has justified its opposition to the sanctions with the country's dependence on Russian energy resources – a dependence that was also true of other countries in the region, which has been reduced least of all in Hungary – which Putin certainly appreciated.

The first veto by Orbán which affected Ukraine in practice came last December, when he rejected the EU's €50 billion package for Ukraine and the necessary review of the EU budget – but in reality, only part of the opposition was directed at Ukraine, and the whole thing was actually part of the wrangling with the European Commission to secure the EU funds which had been withheld over rule of law concerns. In the end, the EU allowed access to part of the funds, and in February Orbán dropped his veto on the package, as well as on Ukraine being able to start of accession negotiations with the EU soon – although he continues to express his objection to this in his statements.

The Hungarian government has made a series of statements that had no practical significance but were designed to keep relations between the two countries frosty:

• One was when, during a backroom meeting, Orbán spoke of Ukraine becoming a no man's land,
• Gergely Gulyás said that Hungary would not enforce the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Putin if the Russian president were to come to Hungary – even though international law says otherwise -
• as well as the fact that at a government briefing in May, the Minister in charge of the Prime Minister's Office called the far right Mi Hazánk party pro peace, even though its leader, László Toroczkai, had said that Hungary would lay claim to Transcarpathia if Ukraine were to lose its statehood.
• This was also the case when Orbán – the only EU leader since the beginning of the war – held talks in Beijing with the Russian President, and during the official part of their talks described the war in Ukraine as a military operation, using the official Russian terminology,
• and also when, at the last cabinet briefing of 2023, he said that the Russian-Ukrainian conflict could not be called a war because Russia had not officially declared war.

Staying out of what he doesn't need to be involved in in the first place

Finally, another one in this series of gestures of little practical significance, but which carry a symbolic message, is Hungary's decision to stay away from the NATO initiative to provide training and long-term financial and military support to Ukraine. Orbán presented this during Jens Stoltenberg's June visit to Budapest as his success in ensuring that Hungary stays out of the war, although the NATO Secretary General pointed out that participation is not an obligation, as laid down in NATO's founding treaty. The alliance recognises that Hungary is not participating in this in any way, nor is it hindering other members' programmes in this direction. For the time being, this was the last occasion when Orbán gave a clear signal of his policy on Ukraine being very different from that of the EU and NATO.

In terms of working on the Hungarian public, these two years have certainly been effective: a significant part of the electorate believe that instead of Putin, who attacked Ukraine, the war is mainly Zelensky's doing, whose image alone makes the Hungarian public boo, even at a concert.

The Ukrainian law really needed amending

The fact is that the Hungarian government's objections to the Ukrainian minority law were not unfounded, and even the Venice Commission called for amendments, which the Ukrainian side took note of. Non-state schools were removed from the language use provisions of the education law followed by a relaxation of the requirement to increase the number of lessons to be taught in Ukrainian, and later the law's entry into force was postponed and essentially abandoned last December.

However, this did not ease tensions: in January, Péter Szijjártó visited Uzhhorod, where he held talks with the Ukrainian foreign minister, but, showing some distrust regarding the amendment to the minority law, he said that it would only be clear later how much of it would be implemented. A few days later, Orbán followed with surprising vehemence, dismissing the Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitro Kuleba's conciliatory remarks in an interview with Telex in which he said that the Hungarian Prime Minister was not pro-Russian but obviously pro-Hungarian: "We do not need the Ukrainians' seal of approval," he said.

But why is Orbán meeting Zelensky now?

As early as last August, it seemed that an Orbán-Zelensky meeting was imminent, the path for which could have been paved by the President's trip to Kyiv. Katalin Novák also visited Bucha and called Russia an aggressor when speaking at an international forum called the Crimea Platform. She also had a brief meeting with the Ukrainian president. Yet this was not followed by a quick meeting of the heads of government, which was pushed onto the backburner anyway by the clemency scandal that cost Novák her presidency.

However, coordination continued to take place through various channels, but based on all of the above, plans for the meeting could have easily fallen through. Last week, however, Olga Stefanishyna said that Ukraine was ready to enforce the 11-point demand that Szijjártó had handed over in January. Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic integration made this announcement four days after the negotiating framework for Ukraine's EU accession had been approved, which also includes the 11-point demand. Then, last weekend, Stefanishyna went as far as to say that Ukraine had a successful relationship with the "peculiar" Hungarian government, and then floated the possibility of Orbán visiting Kyiv – something she personally had been pushing for as early as when she gave an interview to Telex in 2022.

This likely gave Orbán some impetus, although it was probably not what made him decide to go to Kyiv, but December's law amendment and Szijjártó's meeting in January certainly laid a good foundation.

It is more likely that the result of the recent EP elections prompted him to do so. The domestic result is irrelevant in this respect, although the 11 MEPs and 44.8 percent support is Fidesz's worst EP election performance, and the Tisza Party's success with 29.6 percent is a particularly important warning sign. More importantly, however, EU-sceptic forces made less of a breakthrough than expected, with parliamentary maths suggesting that the European People's Party (EPP), the Social Democrats (S&D) and the Liberals could still hold a majority. The numbers of eurosceptics are not enough to force the EPP to work closely with them. Fidesz, which quit the EPP three years ago to escape expulsion, came very close to joining the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), but Giorgia Meloni, who leads the otherwise far-right Italian Brothers (FdI), has turned Orbán down, which actually had to do largely with his stance on Ukraine, his pro-Moscow policies and a general move away from Atlanticist views – although officially it was Fidesz who backed out, citing the inclusion of the anti-Hungarian, nationalist Alliance for the Unification of Romanians (AUR) in the ECR.

Fidesz, which is still without a parliamentary group, is working on a new alliance, but it still needs parties from three more countries, in addition to its Austrian and Czech partners and the Portugese apllicant, and the German far-right AfD is for the time being refraining from joining. “I am convinced that the political formation we are creating today will be successful and will very quickly become the biggest factions of the European right. This will happen within the next few days, and after that the sky will be the limit. But that will be for another press conference”, Orbán said on Sunday. In any case, in an interview with state television broadcast on Monday evening, the Prime Minister said that

the goal is to create a political group in the Eureopean Parliament which will soon become the third and then the second largest. "We will soon outgrow everyone", and "we have a fairly detailed action plan" to that end.

He anticipated that Italians would soon be joining (a likely reference to Lega) too. Orbán added that in a few days many people will be surprised, "you will see from the list of those who have joined who we have already reached an agreement with in advance".

The failure with the ECR also made it clear that it would make things easier for Fidesz in the EU if it appeared more conciliatory with Ukraine, as its pro-Russian politics would continue to isolate it even if potential partners had similar views on the EU, 'Brussels' overreach' or even migration.

Moreover, on 1 July, Hungary took over the EU presidency for six months. For the presidency to be successful and for the EU to address the issues raised by Hungary in a meaningful way, Hungary's image needs to improve, especially as leaders of several member states have gone as far to suggest that it would be better if Hungary had not been given the presidency at all. It would also make dialogue with them easier if Orbán could convincingly demonstrate that he is willing to change his policy towards Ukraine, and a trip to Kyiv after 28 months, coupled with a meeting with Zelensky, whom Orbán declared a force conspiring against him when Fidesz won the 2022 election, seems perfectly suited for this purpose.