Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban entered the April 12, 2026 election facing the most serious challenge of his years in power. According to the article, what is at stake is not only the future of Fidesz, but also Hungary’s foreign-policy direction after years in which the country became one of the main channels of Russian influence inside the European Union.
Orban’s political rise began with the opposite message. On June 16, 1989, at the reburial ceremony for Imre Nagy in Budapest, the 26-year-old politician called for free elections and the withdrawal of Soviet troops. Until the late 2000s, he and Fidesz consistently criticized Moscow. In 2007, Orban warned that Hungary must not become “Gazprom’s happiest barrack,” and a year later he described Russia’s invasion of Georgia as an imperial act.
That course shifted after his return to power in 2010. With a constitutional majority in parliament, the government proclaimed its “Eastern Opening” doctrine in 2011, presenting it as a way to expand exports and attract capital from Russia, China, Turkey, and other states. In practice, the article says, the policy largely turned into closer cooperation with Moscow and Beijing, while in 2014 Orban openly promoted the idea of building an “illiberal state,” citing Russia, China, and Turkey as examples.
Experts interviewed by Novaya-Europe offered different explanations for the change. Journalist and political analyst Gabor Stier said Orban was not pro-Russian, but a pragmatic politician defending Hungarian interests. Maksim Samorukov of the Carnegie Berlin Center similarly argued that Orban is neither anti-Western nor straightforwardly pro-Russian, but instead advances the message that Hungary remains part of the West while rejecting what he sees as the West’s current values.
The dependence on Moscow is most visible in energy. According to the article, Russia’s share of Hungary’s oil imports rose from 61% to 92% between 2022 and 2025. The central project is the expansion of the Paks nuclear power plant: the Paks-2 deal, worth 12.5 billion euros, was signed in 2014 without an open international tender, with 10 billion euros provided as a Russian state loan. On February 5, 2026, Rosatom began pouring concrete for the foundation of the first of the two new units.
The article says cooperation went beyond the economy. In 2019, Budapest invited the International Investment Bank, controlled by the Russian government, to move its headquarters to the Hungarian capital and granted it tax exemptions and immunities. NATO allies described it as a possible platform for Russian intelligence. Only after the United States imposed blocking sanctions on the bank and its executives in spring 2023 did Hungary announce it was leaving the bank’s shareholder structure.
Further concern came from reports of cyber compromise inside Hungary’s foreign ministry. According to Direct36, Russian groups APT28 and APT29 had administrative access for years to the ministry’s IT infrastructure, including a protected network used to transmit NATO and EU documents. Despite this, the Orban government, the article says, did not publicly blame Moscow or seek emergency help from allies.
The election’s outcome may shape Hungary’s relations with the EU and NATO for years. If Fidesz keeps its majority, Budapest’s isolation inside Western institutions is likely to deepen. If the opposition Tisza party led by Peter Magyar wins, Samorukov says a sharp break with Moscow is still unlikely: the shift would more likely mean closer ties with Brussels and a gradual reduction of dependence on Russian resources. In that sense, the author argues, the April 12 vote will show whether Hungary remains Russia’s “Trojan horse” in the EU or begins a slow return to a more European political course.