Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán acting in the West as Moscow’s man on the inside

His central European country is barely the size of Maine. Its 10 million people represent a tiny fraction of the Continent’s population.

Yet Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has taken a starring role in what – to the Biden administration, key European allies, and an invasion-battered Ukraine – looks unsettlingly like the trailer for a geopolitical horror movie.

The putative plotline:

• A returning President Donald Trump ends all aid to Ukraine, tilting the military balance dramatically in favor of the Russian invaders.
• Ukraine’s European backers in the trans-Atlantic NATO alliance fail to fill the gap.
• The Kremlin is emboldened to peel off, Ukraine-style, pro-Russian enclaves in nearby Georgia and Moldova, and then threaten NATO’s own eastern flank – Poland; the once-Soviet Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia; and Finland and Sweden.

Sounds unthinkable?

European countries are taking it seriously, especially those nearest to Russia. And Mr. Orbán has sharpened their concerns in the past few weeks.

The Hungarian leader’s outsize role in the political drama is largely down to the company he keeps.

Although Hungary is a member of NATO, Mr. Orbán’s closest international friends are Russian President Vladimir Putin and Mr. Trump, no fans of the Western alliance.

The Hungarian leader has become something of a Trump-and-Putin whisperer. And earlier this month, after meeting Mr. Trump in Florida, he spelled out what the former president meant when he said last year that if reelected, he would “have that war settled within one day – 24 hours.”

“He will not give a single penny for the Russian-Ukrainian war,” Mr. Orbán said. “That’s why the war will end, because it’s obvious that Ukraine can’t stand on its own feet.”

Tamas Kovacs/MTI/AP/File

Vladimir Putin (right) talks to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán during the opening day of the World Judo Championships in Budapest in 2017.

European leaders are hoping the Ukraine horror movie never gets made, because either Mr. Trump fails to regain the White House or, if he does, he pulls back from his campaign rhetoric.

But a major speech by Mr. Orbán last week, on his return from the United States, underscored the urgency of Europe’s efforts to ramp up support for Ukraine.

Addressing a crowd on Hungary’s national day, he made it clear that he hoped for and expected a Trump win in November. He also predicted that fellow right-wing populists will make major gains in June’s elections for the Parliament of the 27-nation EU.

“We started this year alone. By the end of it, we’ll be the majority in the world!” he proclaimed.

Mr. Orbán has long been a thorn in the side of NATO and the EU.

At home, he has weakened the independent judiciary, constrained the media, and limited rights of LGBTQ+ people and other minority groups. Abroad, he has undermined moves to isolate Russia. He has met Mr. Putin, dispatched his foreign minister to Moscow a half-dozen times, and barred military equipment for Ukraine from crossing Hungarian territory.

So far, his increasingly frustrated partners have found work-arounds.

NATO set up a Ukraine commission that includes every member state except Hungary. The EU has managed to frustrate Mr. Orbán’s bid to block Ukraine’s path to EU membership and European funding for Kyiv.

But that has required the cooperation of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, an ideological ally of Mr. Orbán’s who nonetheless firmly backs Ukraine. It is unclear whether she would hold firm if Americans elect Mr. Trump, with whom she also has close ties.

And with the latest U.S. support package for Ukraine held up in Congress, Mr. Orbán’s prediction of a far-right surge in the EU has lent new impetus to moves to boost European support for Ukraine.

Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP/File

Donald Trump welcomes Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to the White House in Washington in 2019.

Last week, the Continent’s two major players, France and Germany, held a summit to begin repairing a Franco-German rift on Ukraine that has complicated the supply of arms to Kyiv.

While Europe as a whole has provided about half the West’s assistance to Ukraine since the 2022 invasion, French President Emmanuel Macron is adamant that Europe, and Germany in particular, must supply Ukraine with more powerful weaponry.

Russia’s NATO neighbors are already upping their defense preparedness with a wary eye on a rearming Moscow.

And when the EU managed to provide Ukraine with only half of the 1 million urgently needed artillery shells it had promised, the Czech Republic enlisted NATO partners’ backing to buy hundreds of thousands outside Europe. An initial 300,000 shells could now reach Ukraine within weeks.

But ahead of a meeting on Thursday of EU leaders, European Council President Charles Michel said more military aid was needed and that it was time to “put the EU’s economy on a war footing.”

Mr. Macron, who clearly agrees, said last week that if Russia prevails in Ukraine, “Europe’s credibility is reduced to zero. Who can think Vladimir Putin will stop there?”

Still, he, like many European leaders, will be haunted by something else Mr. Orbán said after his meeting with Mr. Trump: “If the Americans don’t give any money or weapons, the Europeans won’t be able to fund this war on their own.”