FIDESZ

Viktor Orbán has made a specialty of currying favor with Moscow while being celebrated at Mar-a-Lago. His reading of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict, according to which any prospect of a Ukrainian victory would amount to a dangerous provocation, aligns perfectly with the Kremlin’s talking points… and finds an enthusiastic echo in Donald Trump, who sees in him a “great leader” and a “great friend.”

Viktor Orbán is not merely an outlier within the European Union. He is its vanishing point. He's the one who, at the heart of European institutions, slows, blocks, stalls, while to the west, Donald Trump casts Ukraine as a burden and downplays Russia’s responsibility.

Refusal to use frozen Russian assets, opposition to sanctions, methodical obstruction of aid mechanisms for Kyiv: once again, it’s him and the consistency is absolute. Viktor Orbán does not choose between Washington and Moscow; he connects the two. He becomes the transmission belt of a shared vision: Ukraine as a bargaining chip, Europe as a field of influence.

And at home? Systemic corruption, a press under pressure, a weakened judiciary, stigmatized minorities. The laboratory works. It proves that institutional appearances can be preserved while democracy is hollowed out from within: a model that fascinates Trumpist circles as much as it reassures the Kremlin.

Viktor Orbán is not a European anomaly. He is a hinge. Between Donald Trump and Vladimir Poutine, he holds the pivot.