Russia is giving its masterclass in election interference ahead of Hungary's vote

Russia's President Vladimir Putin (L) meets with Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban (R) at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, on Nov. 28, 2025. (Alexander Nemenov / Pool / AFP / Getty Images) Prefer on Google Liubov Tsybulska Founder and current director of NGO "Join Ukraine" When Hungarians go to the polls tomorrow, they will be voting in an environment poisoned by probably the largest documented campaign of foreign election interference in EU history. The central paradox of this campaign is not that Russia is interfering — that has long become the norm. It is that Russia is doing so while wearing a Ukrainian disguise. In Hungarian elections this year, the Kremlin has bundled everything into one package and added an element never before deployed at this scale: the systematic attribution of its own operations to Ukraine . Under Prime Minister Viktor Orban 's leadership, Hungary has spent the past several years consistently occupying the position most advantageous to Moscow within the EU and NATO . Budapest has obstructed macro-financial and military aid to Ukraine, vetoed or blocked sanctions, and Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto, as revealed by audio recordings , informed Lavrov about closed EU debates, offered to forward confidential documents on Ukraine's accession process, and assured his Russian counterpart: "I am always at your service." The extent to which this course is a deliberate choice by Budapest, versus the result of a gradual erosion of sovereignty amid energy dependence on Moscow, remains an open question. But the fact stands: no other EU member state has provided the Kremlin with such a reliable advocate in Brussels. The Kremlin has dispatched three GRU operatives to Budapest under diplomatic cover. The operation is overseen by Sergei Kiriyenko, First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Russian Presidential Administration and the architect of Russia's election interference in Moldova . The central method is a false flag: stage an incident, attribute it to Ukraine, and use it to mobilize voters through fear. We studied some of the most documented episodes. Firstly, there's a "Matryoshka" bot network, a coordinated infrastructure of fake accounts that fabricates "anti-Hungarian" videos bearing the logos of reputable media outlets. According to NewsGuard and The Insider , the network spread fabricated stories about Ukrainian "HIV squads," fake cyberattack videos, and hundreds of clips showing Hungarian flags being burned — all traced back to a covert TikTok influence operation of 34 accounts. The interference didn't stop at TikTok. A week before the vote, Serbian authorities discovered two backpacks containing plastic explosives near the TurkStream gas pipeline spur close to the Hungarian border. Orban instantly blamed Ukrainian sabotage, though security expert Andras Racz, together with other public figures, had publicly predicted the incident three days earlier, down to the location and the "Ukrainian" framing. The Washington Post also revealed a Russian SVR plan, authenticated by European intelligence, to stage a fake assassination attempt on Orban, likely abandoned only because publication disrupted it. And in Transcarpathia, ethnic Hungarians received mass threatening calls from spoofed Ukrainian numbers, traced by Ukraine's SBU directly back to Russian territory. It would be dishonest to present this story without pointing to a few Ukrainian mistakes that ended up fueling the very propaganda campaign against it. On March 5, President Volodymyr Zelensky declared that he was ready to hand over the address of "one person" in the EU who was blocking a 90-billion-euro credit line to Ukraine's armed forces, "so that they could call him and speak to him in his language." A pedestrian walks past pro-government billboards featuring a portrait of President Volodymyr Zelensky (L), with the text reading "Let's not let Zelensky have the last laugh," and another billboard featuring European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (R), President Volodymyr Zelensky (C), and Hungarian opposition leader Peter Magyar (L) with the text "They themselves are the risk," in Budapest, Hungary, on March 3, 2026. (Attila Kisbenedek / AFP / Getty Images) Formally, he did not name Orban, but everyone understood to whom the message was intended. The European Commission publicly condemned the remarks as "unacceptable." Even Magyar, who advocates a pro-European course, demanded that Zelensky retract the statement, saying, "No foreign leader may threaten any Hungarian." The statement landed like a gift for Orbán's campaign. So did the comments of a former SBU officer who muttered "karma" for Orban and his family on a marginal YouTube channel. The private opinion of a retiree with zero connection to state decision-making — yet it was instantly seized upon and presented by Kremlin-aligned and pro-government Hungarian media as Kyiv's official position. More broadly, Ukraine has not had — and does not have — an adequate strategic communications approach to the Hungarian elections . There has been no attempt to build contact with Hungarian civil society, nor even a consistent line in public statements. A separately alarming signal is how far these narratives have penetrated. U.S. Vice President JD Vance, arriving in Budapest just days before the vote, accused the EU and Ukraine of "interfering in Hungarian elections" and called Zelensky's remarks "absolutely outrageous." Whether consciously or not, these talking points mirrored the Kremlin's position: that same week, Moscow declared that "some EU countries are helping Orban's rivals." The situation is unprecedented and somewhat comical: in no Central European election have the American and Russian political camps ever so openly backed the same candidate. The central device — the false flag, the masquerade as Ukraine — serves a dual purpose. First, to mobilize the Hungarian voter through fear of an "aggressive neighbor." Second — and this may be even more important — to destroy any possibility of normalizing Ukrainian-Hungarian relations, regardless of who wins the election. A likely new pro-European government in Budapest would inherit a society half-consciously convinced that "the Ukrainians wanted to blow up our gas pipeline and kill our prime minister." If this model succeeds, the Kremlin will have a working template for any future campaign in Europe. If it fails, it will mean that false-flag hybrid operations have an effectiveness ceiling —and that a society is capable of distinguishing manipulation, even in an environment maximally poisoned by disinformation. Hungarian society will give its answer tomorrow. Editor's note: The opinions expressed in the op-ed section are those of the authors and do not purport to reflect the views of the Kyiv Independent.