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Orban and Fico: Putin’s NATO pawns

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban — fighting for his political life ahead of Hungary’s April 12 elections — is once again attacking Ukraine.

This time, he is callously blackmailing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky by refusing to backstop Ukraine’s electrical grid if needed, unless Kyiv agrees to let Russian oil flow once again through the Druzhba oil pipeline.

Ukraine’s answer? It sent 35-plus drones 930 miles deep inside of Russia to strike the Kaleykino oil pumping facility — a critical node of the Druzhba pipeline — destroying multiple “pump lines and crude oil storage reservoirs.”

Earlier, Orban had threatened to block a $106 billion European Union loan to Ukraine unless his demands were met.

As the now-ubiquitous saying goes Hungary fooled around and found out. Four years into defending Ukraine, Zelensky does not have the patience to deal with a whiny Orban. Russian oil will not be flowing anytime soon to Hungary, nor to Slovakia where Robert Fico, the country’s prime minister, was making similar threats.

As a result, Orban is in even more electoral trouble. His party poll numbers are plunging. Tisza, a Hungarian political party started by Peter Magyar, is leading Orban’s governing Fidesz party 55 percent to 35 percent among decided voters, according to a new poll released yesterday. 

Desperate for a way out, Orban is now attempting to campaign against Zelensky instead of Magyar. He is accusing Ukraine of imposing an oil blockade on Hungary and Slovakia, as if it were happening in a vacuum. It isn’t.

The Druzhba pipeline runs through Ukraine. When it was flowing, those oil sales to Budapest and Bratislava were funding Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war machine that was attacking Ukraine daily.

“We will not give in to blackmail!” screeched Orban yesterday on X. That is ironic, since Hungary has been blackmailing Ukraine, NATO and the European Union ever since Putin launched his invasion on Feb. 24, 2022.

Orbán –– laughably –– is also trying to convince Hungarian voters that Ukraine is preparing kinetic strikes against “Hungary’s energy system.” He has ordered Hungarian troops deployed to “repel potential attacks” against energy infrastructure. Hungarian voters should be wary of a possible false-flag attack.

But Ukraine is not at war with Hungary, even if the latter has been in a soft war against Ukraine benefiting Putin — if not at his behest. Soon after Putin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto announced that Hungary would not allow NATO to transit weapons and munitions via its territory to Ukraine. His excuse at the time was that Russia might target those deliveries inside of Hungary.

That was nonsense, of course. Hungary is a NATO member-state and fully militarily protected by Article Five, the alliance’s collective defense guarantee.

Not long after that, Orban began to play games over Finland and Sweden’s bids to join NATO in March 2022. He succeeded in delaying the process for nearly two years by effectively blackmailing the EU for economic concessions. 

Initially, in early 2023, we wrote it off as Orban being opportunistic — just as Turkish President Recep Erdoğan was. Now, however, in retrospect, it feels far more nefarious.

Orban’s words and actions — like Fico’s — are, wittingly or not, aiding and abetting Russia’s kinetic war against Ukraine and the Kremlin’s ongoing hybrid war against NATO.

To that end, consider the totality of Orban’s actions. In December 2022, he blocked an €18 billion EU aid package for Ukraine. In May 2023, Hungary stopped the disbursement of €500 million from the EU’s European Peace Facility.

In December 2023, Orbán vetoed a €50 billion aid package for Kyiv. In March 2025, he refused to sign an EU statement “voicing support for Ukraine.”

Essentially, Orban has been Moscow’s man in Brussels. He hides behind economic excuses, claiming Europe cannot afford this war, as he champions Putin’s interests in the West.

Nor has Orban been alone. Since his electoral victory in October 2023, Fico has acted as Orban’s “mini-me.” Later that same month, Fico stopped all military aid to Ukraine. In October 2024, Slovakia blocked Kyiv’s NATO membership bid. 

One year later, Fico announced that Bratislava would not participate in any EU financing of the war in Ukraine. Then, earlier this week –– a day before the fourth anniversary of Putin’s invasion –– Fico announced that Slovakia was cutting emergency assistance to Ukraine, including backstopping electricity.

So let’s call them what they are: Putin’s pawns. Both central European leaders would gladly continue to crassly trade cheap Russian oil for Ukrainian lives. 

The historical irony is that both Hungary and Slovakia — when it was part of Czechoslovakia — learned what it is like to be invaded by Russia. In the last hundred years, it has happened to Hungary twice –– in 1944 and 1956 –– and once to Czechoslovakia in 1968, to crush what was known as the “Prague Spring.”

It is time NATO and the EU to suspended Hungary’s and Slovakia’s memberships. Both countries are endangering the very alliances they are obligated to protect and are openly doing so to the benefit of Putin for cheap energy, if not more.

Mark Toth writes on national security and foreign policy. Col. (Ret.) Jonathan Sweet served 30 years as a military intelligence officer and led the US European Command Intelligence Engagement Division from 2012 to 2014.  They are the co-founders of INTREP360 and the INTREP360 Intelligence Report on Substack.

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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