Vance slams EU ‘interference’ and Ukrainian spies in key Hungary visit

US Vice President J.D. Vance has met with Viktor Orban in Budapest in a high-profile visit ahead of a critical parliamentary election. The Hungarian prime minister’s party is trailing that of his pro-EU opponent in the polls, and he has accused Brussels of interfering in the vote.

Vance touched down in Budapest on Tuesday, where he was greeted by Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto. In a short clip published on social media, Szijjarto hailed the visit as a sign of “a golden age for Hungarian-American relations.” Vance is the highest-level American official to visit the Hungarian capital since then-US President George W. Bush went there in 2006.

Vance and Orban then held a joint press conference, in which Vance described the Hungarian prime minister as “one of the only true statesmen in Europe.” By visiting Budapest, Vance said that he aims to “send a signal to everybody, particularly the bureaucrats in Brussels, who have done everything that they can to hold down the people of Hungary.”

The visit comes at a crucial time for Orban and for the EU. Hungarians will go to the polls on Sunday to vote in a general election. Pre-election polls show Orban’s Fidesz party trailing Peter Magyar’s pro-EU Tisza party, and the campaign to date has been bitterly fought.

Brussels has implemented draconian social media censorship measures ahead of the vote, which are widely seen to benefit Magyar. Tisza officials, Ukrainian and EU spies, and opposition journalists have all been accused of meddling in the election, with a wiretapping plot against Szijjarto exposed last month, and Ukraine cutting off Russian oil supplies to Hungary.

For Brussels and Kiev, the stakes are high. Orban opposes Ukraine’s potential accession to NATO and the EU, has obstructed multiple rounds of sanctions against Moscow to continue purchasing Russian energy, and is currently vetoing a €90 billion ($104 billion) EU loan package for Ukraine.

He has portrayed the election as a choice between Hungary’s national interests and the EU’s “suicidal” attempts to prolong the Ukraine conflict.

Vance hailed Orban as “the single profound leader in Europe on the question of energy security and independence,” and described Orban and US President Donald Trump as “the two leaders who have done the most to actually end” the conflict.

Turning to the EU and Ukraine, Vance declared that Brussels is responsible for “one of the worst examples of foreign election interference that I have ever seen,” and claimed that “there are elements within the Ukrainian intelligence services that try to put their thumb on the scale of American elections, [or] on Hungarian elections,” adding “this is just what they do.”

According to Hungarian security officials, Ukraine trained at least one spy within Magyar’s party. Szijjarto has also hinted that Ukrainian agents may have been responsible for a thwarted plot to bomb the Balkan Stream pipeline, an extension of the TurkStream pipeline which delivers Russian gas to Hungary via Serbia. Serbian authorities discovered explosives of “devastating power” planted near the pipeline, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic told reporters on Sunday.

Magyar has dismissed Vance’s visit as foreign interference. “No foreign country may interfere in Hungarian elections,” he wrote on social media on Tuesday. “Hungarian history is not written in Washington, Moscow, or Brussels – it is written in Hungary’s streets and squares.”

The opposition leader toned down his criticism in a follow-up post, stating that a Tisza government would “regard the United States as a key partner, both as a NATO ally and as an economic partner,” while he would be “pleased to welcome the President and the Vice President to Budapest.”

Meanwhile, crowds of Fidesz supporters packed into Budapest’s MTK Sportpark Arena, where Vance and Orban are due to speak later on Wednesday at a “Hungarian-American friendship” rally.