On 31 March 2026, twelve days before Hungary’s parliamentary election, the Warsaw-based investigative outlet Vsquare.org released an audio recording of a phone call between Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. In it, Lavrov reminded Szijjártó of a promise to help remove the sister of a Russian businessman from the EU’s sanctions list. Szijjártó replied: ‘We will do our best in order to get her off.’ Before hanging up, he added, ‘I am always at your disposal.’ Vsquare separately reported that Szijjártó told Russia’s Deputy Energy Minister that he was working to repeal EU sanctions on Russia’s shadow oil tanker fleet. The Washington Post had earlier reported that Szijjártó made regular phone calls during breaks at EU meetings to brief Lavrov with ‘live reports on what’s been discussed.’
The leaked audio confirmed what EU officials had long suspected: Hungary is working from inside the bloc to serve Russian interests. Viktor Orbán’s government dismissed the revelations as a manufactured wiretapping scandal – foreign interference aimed at destabilising the country before the 12 April parliamentary election. The substance of the calls was not addressed.
This response was possible because of what had taken place on a larger scale in the preceding months. Kremlin-aligned figures, Europe’s leading nationalist politicians, and senior members of the Trump administration had all constructed the same narrative around Orbán: a courageous leader, besieged by hostile institutions, whose persecution only proves his virtue. The language came from different directions, but the portrait was identical.
The Archetype of the resurgent right
On 12 December 2025, Kirill Dmitriev, head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund and a special envoy of Putin, compared Orbán to Jon Snow from Game of Thrones: a warrior fighting ‘insane military bureaucrats’ for ‘common sense, values and peace’.
On 23 March 2026, Matteo Salvini, Italy’s deputy prime minister and leader of the Lega party, declared at the Patriots’ Grand Assembly in Budapest: ‘Viktor Orbán is a true hero.’ Santiago Abascal, leader of Spain’s Vox party, called him ‘Europe’s true defender’ and praised him for blocking ‘many of the European Commission’s insane proposals’. Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s National Rally, described Hungary as ‘an emblem of the resistance of a proud and sovereign people to oppression’.
On 7 November 2025, Trump told the White House press corps at a bilateral meeting: ‘He’s a great leader, and he’s respected all over, not necessarily liked by some of the leaders. But those leaders have proven to be wrong.’ On Truth Social in March 2026, he gave Orbán his ‘Complete and Total Endorsement for Re-Election’, calling him ‘a true friend, fighter, and WINNER’.
Dmitry Kiselyov – anchor of Russia’s flagship weekly news programme ‘Vesti Nedeli’ and head of the state media agency Rossiya Segodnya – warned that ‘EU officials have long dreamed of excluding Orbán from collective decision-making, and the upcoming April parliamentary elections are their chance to finally get rid of the wilful Hungarian’. Alice Weidel, leader of Germany’s AfD, called Orbán ‘the true beacon of freedom’. Geert Wilders, leader of the Dutch Party for Freedom (PVV), called him ‘a lion in a continent led by sheep’. Nigel Farage, leader of Britain’s Reform UK, put it bluntly: Orbán is ‘the strongest leader in Europe and the EU’s biggest nightmare’.
The same archetype – a lone figure defying a corrupt system – has been constructed independently in Moscow, European capitals, and Mar-a-Lago.
Dismantling the superstructure
The shared hero needs a shared villain. All roads lead to Brussels.
On 12 February 2025, Weidel, at a joint press conference with Orbán in Budapest, called for ‘dismantling the entire bureaucratic, expensive – and, in my view, corrupt – superstructure’ of the EU. At the Patriots’ Grand Assembly in March 2026, Le Pen told Hungarian voters: ‘On April 12, you will send a new message of strength and determination to tired old technocrats in Brussels.’ Abascal added: ‘I would like to ask you not to let Brussels’ puppets take away everything you have achieved.’ On 21 January 2026, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, Orbán’s closest EU ally, described the EU as ‘a massage parlour’ and later in March declared: ‘Viktor Orbán is politically right. Zelensky cannot run the European Union.’
From outside the EU, the Trump administration adopted the same anti-Brussels stance, just in a different language. Marco Rubio declared in Budapest on 16 February 2026: ‘Under President Trump, it is our expectation that every nation on Earth is going to act in their national interest.’ Trump called European nations ‘decaying’ while holding up Orbán as a model. Vice President JD Vance, at the Munich Security Conference in February 2025, argued that Europe’s greatest threat was ‘from within – censorship, suppression of populist voices, and annulled elections.’ He did not name Orbán, but the alignment was unmistakable.
The Ukraine question
The convergence is sharpest in Ukraine. When Orbán called Ukraine ‘a terrorist state’, Russian outlets ran it as an established fact. A Hungarian prime minister saying this from inside the EU carries a weight that no commentator in Moscow could match.
Le Pen defended Orbán’s veto of the €90 billion EU loan to Ukraine: ‘Can I blame a country for protecting my interests? Of course not.’ Weidel stated that Orbán is ‘the only guarantee that Ukraine will not join the European Union.’ Salvini framed Hungary’s sovereignty as threatened by Kyiv, declaring that ‘the free choice of the Hungarian nation’ is ‘worth much more than Soros’s billions or Zelensky’s threats.’
Trump used Orbán to validate his own scepticism. At their November 2025 meeting, he told reporters: ‘We were talking about that with Viktor, he understands Putin and knows him very well.’ He then asked Orbán directly: ‘So you would say that Ukraine cannot win that war?’ Orbán replied: ‘You know, a miracle can happen’ [sic]. Trump chuckled.
The ‘Golden Age’ of the superpower patron
European nationalists offer Orbán solidarity. The Trump administration offers something more tangible: asymmetric material leverage. In November 2025, Trump granted Hungary a one-year exemption from US sanctions on Russian energy. At their White House meeting, the two leaders also agreed on a US-backed financial shield worth up to $20 billion that Hungary could tap if needed. In February 2026, Rubio visited Budapest to sign a civilian nuclear cooperation agreement and pledged that Trump would ‘provide assistance if Hungary had any financial trouble’. Both Rubio and Orbán described this relationship as a ‘Golden Age’, signifying a ‘special bilateral status’ that European allies like Le Pen or Wilders do not and cannot claim. Rubio explicitly tied the energy sanctions waiver to the personal bond between Trump and Orbán: ‘Those sanctions waivers happened, as much as anything else, because of the relationship between the prime minister and the President.’
This patronage is also about policy transfer. Vice President JD Vance treats Hungary as a ‘governance template’, advocating for the import of its pro-natalist loans and university reforms in order to dismantle liberal institutions at home. This template even extends to the structural control of information, with parallels drawn between Orbán’s media consolidation and US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth’s anticipation of ownership changes at networks like CNN.
The ‘Golden Age’ is further anchored by an institutional scaffolding that bridges the Atlantic. The Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC) serves as a primary hub for this network, particularly in Britain and the US. Nigel Farage’s senior adviser, James Orr, for instance, sits on the board of the Roger Scruton Legacy Foundation, which is funded via the MCC. Because the MCC’s parent entity, MOL Group, refines Russian oil, this creates a direct channel whereby Russian energy profits flow through Hungarian state-linked entities into the intellectual infrastructure of the anglophone right.
US backing for Orbán has triggered a strategic realignment within Europe. Emboldened by Trump’s return, Orbán executed a sharp ‘AfD pivot’ in 2025, abandoning years of caution to host Alice Weidel in Budapest. Weidel told the joint press conference: ‘For the AfD, Hungary serves as a model to follow and as a symbol of sovereignty and independence.’ Through this axis, Orbán has become a strategic veto-holder for his allies, proving that the ‘Golden Age’ has effectively redefined the strategic map of the European right.
The Orbán consensus
On 12 April, Hungarian voters will decide Orbán’s fate. Péter Magyar, a former Fidesz insider turned opposition leader, and his centre-right Tisza party lead most independent polls by a wide margin. It is the most serious challenge to Orbán’s rule in sixteen years – and the Orbán International has mobilised accordingly.
The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Hungary took place on 21 March. The Patriots’ Grand Assembly followed two days later. Le Pen, Wilders, Salvini, Abascal, and Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš all appeared in Budapest less than three weeks before polling day. Trump sent a video message to CPAC Hungary. Fico warned that if Orbán wins, there will be international attempts to question the result, and pledged to back him firmly if that happens.
Moscow, Europe’s nationalist parties, and the Trump administration share an ideological foundation: scepticism of multilateral institutions, the elevation of national sovereignty above collective rules, and the treatment of liberal-democratic norms as instruments of elite control. Orbán’s position inside the EU makes him uniquely valuable to all of them – as a veto-holder, a validator, and a governance model. If the Orbán consensus holds on 12 April, Weidel’s call to ‘dismantle’ the EU’s ‘corrupt superstructure’ from within will gain momentum, and it is unclear who will be able to stop it.
