Orbán: Ukraine wants to interfere in Hungarian elections, we are summoning the Ukrainian ambassador

According to Viktor Orbán, the Ukrainian government is seeking to interfere in the upcoming Hungarian elections through a series of coordinated measures. The Hungarian Prime Minister posted a short video on Facebook on Monday afternoon in which he said that Ukrainian political leaders and the Ukrainian President had made “grossly offensive and threatening statements against Hungary and the Hungarian government the week before.”

According to him, Hungarian national security agencies have examined "this latest Ukrainian attack" and concluded that "these events are part of a series of coordinated Ukrainian measures aimed at interfering in the Hungarian elections." Orbán then went on to say that in order to protect Hungary's sovereignty and the integrity of the elections, he had instructed Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó to summon the Ukrainian ambassador.

The Hungarian and Ukrainian governments did indeed exchange several messages last week. The latest round of tit-for-tat between the two governments began when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky took a swipe at Viktor Orbán in his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, saying that "every Viktor who is living off European money while trying to sell out European interests deserves a slap in the face." Orbán responded on Facebook in Hungarian, calling the Ukrainian president "a man in a tight spot" who “has been unable or unwilling to end a war for four years.”

Following the two leaders, the foreign ministers also engaged in a war of words, with Péter Szijjártó and Andrii Sybiha exchanging messages on X. The Ukrainian Foreign Minister wrote about "Orbán's master in Moscow", prompting Péter Szijjártó to accuse Ukraine of trying to influence the Hungarian elections because "you want a government that says yes to Brussels and is ready to drag Hungary into your war." Sybiha responded by saying that the Hungarian government should not worry about the Ukrainians, but rather the Hungarian voters, from which Minister Szijjártó concluded that “the Ukrainian Foreign Minister has just announced that the Ukrainian government will participate in the Hungarian elections. They will run under the name of Tisza.”