US Vice President JD Vance on Wednesday criticized earlier remarks made by President Volodymyr Zelensky against Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in March, calling them “completely scandalous” and “preposterous.”
Speaking at a panel in Budapest while campaigning for Orban ahead of Hungary’s April 12 elections, Vance cited what he described as Zelensky’s threats against Orban during a diplomatic standoff over Budapest’s blocking of a vital EU loan for Kyiv worth €90 billion ($103 billion).
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“I wasn’t even aware that Zelensky had said that he was going to send private soldiers to the prime minister’s residence until yesterday. Viktor [Orban] actually told me that, and then I went and looked it up,” Vance said.
“That’s completely scandalous. You should never have a foreign head of government or a foreign head of state threatening the foreign… threatening the head of government of an allied nation. It’s preposterous. It’s unacceptable,” he added.
The incident Vance referred to took place in early March, when Zelensky suggested to reporters at a press briefing that Ukrainian soldiers could talk to Orban “in their own language” amid Orban’s threats to veto the loan package at the last minute.
“We hope that one person in the European Union will not block €90 billion [$104 billion], or the first tranche of the €90 billion, and that Ukrainian soldiers will have weapons,” he said, according to state media Ukrinform at the time.
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“Otherwise, we will give the address of this person to our Armed Forces, to our guys. Let them call him and speak with him in their own language,” Zelensky said.
The EU has also criticized Zelensky’s remarks at the time, and the vital loan remains blocked by Orban’s government.
Kyiv and Budapest have long been engulfed in a diplomatic standoff over Budapest’s purchase of Russian energy and Ukraine’s EU membership bid, among other issues.
But a leaked call ahead of the elections showed Orban cozying up to Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin, calling him a lion and himself a mouse at the lion’s service. His foreign minister was also implicated in sharing details from closed-door EU meetings with Russia’s foreign minister and consulting a Russian deputy energy minister on how to counter EU sanctions – by framing it as a fight for Hungarian interests.
Vance to Orban’s rescue
Polls suggest that Orban’s party faces the biggest challenge in his 16-year rule, with the opposition polling ahead.
Vance said he traveled to rally for Orban at the request of US President Donald Trump, due to what they claimed was election interference by the EU, according to Hungarian outlet Telex.
During the rally, Vance also echoed Orban’s longstanding criticism of Kyiv, Zelensky, and the EU – also a core theme of Orban’s election campaign – claiming they tried to interfere with the US and Hungarian elections.
“This is just what they do. This is part and cost of doing the business with some elements of their system. I try to remind myself that Ukraine, like the United States, is a very complicated place,” he said, as reported by Ukrainian outlet European Pravda.
“There are people who try to interfere in other [countries’] elections, and there are people who actually just say: ‘You know what, we believe in sovereignty for everybody, and that’s what we support,’” he added.
Hungarian opposition leader Péter Magyar slammed what he called foreign interference on Tuesday – regardless of the country of origin.
“Hungarian history is not written in Washington, not in Brussels, not in Kyiv, not in Moscow and not in Serbia but in Hungary. Hungarian history is written by Hungarian people,” he said.
“I must insist that all international politicians from Hungary to Serbia, from Russia to America, refrain from intervening in the Hungarian elections. We are not a geopolitical playground. This is our country here,” he added.