The Peter Magyar phenomenon: a threat to Orban or hope for Ukraine?

The Hungarian newspaper Magyar Nemzet, the information mouthpiece of the Orban government, published an article under the telling title «Orbán Viktor: A Zelenszkij-terv egy ált hadüzenet Magyarországnak» (Victor Orban: Zelensky’s plan is an open declaration of war on Hungary). It states, in particular: «The official newspaper of the Brussels elite, Politico, has published the latest war plan of Brussels and Kyiv, Zelensky’s five-point plan. They decided: Ukraine will be accepted into the EU as early as 2027. The Prime Minister wrote about this on his page on social networks. Viktor Orban added: the new plan is an open declaration of war on Hungary. They ignore the decision of the Hungarians and will remove the Hungarian government from the path at any cost. «They want «Tisa» to come, because then there will be no more vetoes, no more resistance, and no more retreats. «We can still stop them in April this year», Viktor Orban shared on his Facebook page».

Magyar Nemzet then quotes Orban again: «Brussels has developed a new plan. The goal of Zelensky’s newly published plan is to push Ukraine into the European Union by 2027. At any cost. But Viktor Orban stands in their way. Therefore, according to the third point of Zelensky’s plan, Orban must be removed. Instead, Peter Magyar must be brought to power, because he supports Ukraine’s accession to the EU». With the «Tisa» party, Zelensky’s plan will be implemented. They will drag us into war, force us to pay for aid to Ukraine. On the other hand, we say «no» to war!».

It is quite obvious that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is building his election campaign on anti-European and anti-Ukrainian rhetoric. Orbán’s strategy before the parliamentary elections in April 2026 is a classic example of right-wing populism and «illiberal democracy». When the use of anti-European and anti-Ukrainian rhetoric performs several key functions to preserve power in the face of the most serious political challenge.

This Orbán strategy has several political dimensions. He aimed to polarize the Hungarian electorate and maximally concentrate the efforts of his Fidesz party supporters. Viktor Orbán, like all populist leaders, needs to constantly construct the image of the «enemy» in order to divide society into the «real people» and the «political elites» hostile to him, frightening Hungarians with «external threats».

The Hungarian prime minister hopes to win the April 12 elections by presenting Ukraine to his voters as Hungary’s most dangerous «existential threat». «In a reversal of the terms, Orban calls Ukraine an «enemy», accusing it of trying to drag Hungary into war. The goal is to maximize the activation of the basic security instinct in rural and conservative voters.

It is not difficult to see that the entire campaign of the prime minister is based on structuring information in such a way that it shapes the perception of Hungarians at the subconscious level – Orban is the only «guarantor of peace», and the opposition (Peter Magyar’s «Tysa» party) are puppets of the European Union and Ukraine who «want war».

It seems that Orban’s election headquarters decided to use the artificial division of Hungarian society as a political tool of the election strategy to compete with Peter Magyar’s party. Where the main attention is paid to the mechanisms of structuring the information space by creating the image of Viktor Orban as an alternative «guarantor of peace» who is irreconcilably fighting against Peter Magyar’s opponents, who are «agents of war».

At the same time, threats to Hungarians from three sides at once – Peter Magyar, the EU, and Ukraine – are being mixed into an «information propaganda cocktail». In fact, Orban is building a new architecture of threats for Hungary.

And the Hungarian Prime Minister, in the context of the approaching parliamentary elections and the unprecedented growth of the domestic opposition, is transforming this construction of the dangerous triad «Magyar – Brussels – Kyiv» into his communication strategy.

It is worth noting that the traditional image of the «enemy», which was previously segmented (migrants, George Soros, EU bureaucracy), is today evolving into a holistic «threat architecture». It is based on a symbiotic combination of three elements: an internal challenge in the person of Peter Magyar, external pressure from Brussels, and geopolitical antagonism with Kyiv.

It is significant that these elections do not promise to be comfortable for the Orban regime. After all, Peter Magyar is a «Trojan horse» within the system of power that Viktor Orban has built for his political needs over the years of his rule.

Because the emergence of Peter Magyar and his party «Tisa» has destroyed the monopoly of «Fidesz» on the center-right field. To neutralize this threat, Orbán’s propaganda machine integrates Magyar into a broader anti-national context. He is positioned not as an independent political player, but as a «Brussels project», supposedly designed to dismantle Hungary’s sovereignty from within. And any internal opposition is automatically delegitimized as an instrument of foreign influence.

In this way, for Orban’s electorate, an irreconcilable confrontation between Budapest and Brussels is being built – the defense of Hungarian sovereignty against the «dictation» of the European Union. When the European Union appears in Orban’s narratives as a hostile institution that carries out“«financial blackmail» and imposes «alien values».

Brussels is also accused of trying to drag Hungary into war and deprive it of its energy security through sanctions against the Russian Federation. This allows Orban to act as the sole defender of the «real Europe» and national interests against the «Brussels liberal elites».

It is very important for the Hungarian Prime Minister to intimidate voters and convince his electorate that Hungary is surrounded by «enemies» on all sides. And only Viktor Orban will be able to resist their invasion. Orban here acts as a kind of «savior» of the Hungarian people from this «terrible hostile environment». Therefore, Hungarians must clearly define their position – with whom they are.  

At the same time, the role of the main geopolitical antagonist is assigned to Ukraine. In his latest political statements, Viktor Orban directly calls Ukraine «the enemy of Hungary», which marks a sharp radicalization of rhetoric. Orbanists accuse Kyiv of three things:

• Economic threat: attempts to deprive Hungary of cheap Russian energy.
• Security threat: «export of war» and drawing NATO and the EU into direct conflict with Russia.
• Political threat: participation of Ukrainian special services in a «conspiracy» with the Hungarian opposition to change the regime in Budapest.

For its political survival, Viktor Orbán’s regime has built a holistic system of «information synthesis», where old phobias are regularly updated and combined into large-scale conspiracy theories. This strategy of pressing the «moral panic button» allows mobilizing the electorate through a constant sense of siege and fear of losing what it traditionally considers the basis of its stable life.

This information wave of «threats» creates in the average Hungarian the feeling of being in a hostile circle. Where Peter Magyar undermines political stability and national consensus, being the main initiator of internal pressure on the authorities that protect traditional values ​​within the country, Brussels becomes the ideological center of planning the destruction of Hungary’s national sovereignty, and Kyiv’s actions are perceived as a direct threat to state security and the economic well-being of the Hungarian people.

Building such a complex threat architecture serves several functions:

• Mobilization of the electorate. Fear of war and economic collapse unites the conservative electorate around a «strong leader».
• Distraction. Shifting focus from internal problems (corruption, inflation) to external enemies.
• Preventive delegitimization of the elections. If the opposition wins, it will be presented not as the result of the will of the people, but as a successful «special operation» by Brussels and Kyiv.

In short, this set of «horror stories» is a classic example of the securitization of political discourse, where ordinary political opponents are transformed into existential threats to national survival.

But an equally difficult challenge for the opposition of Peter Magyar from the «Tysa» party is the media empire of Viktor Orban’s regime. To successfully confront the threats of losing power, the «Hungarian Putin» uses total control over the Hungarian media space.

Among the effective levers of information influence is centralized content. Where the same thesis simultaneously appears in hundreds of state and private media outlets controlled by oligarchs loyal to the regime. And dominance in social networks is also used, when the Hungarian government spends record amounts of money for the European Union on political advertising on Facebook and Google in order to convey its «scares» to every potential voter.

This spring, Viktor Orbán’s regime will face its most serious challenge yet in the form of Péter Magyar and his Tisza party. Unlike the previous liberal opposition, Magyar appeals to a conservative electorate. In response, the Fidesz apparatus has radicalized its rhetoric, transforming the political competition from a debate about corruption and the economy into a question of national survival.

One of the main political slogans of the current government is that «Obrán is the guarantor of peace». This is used as a central element of Orbán’s campaign and has turned into an appropriation of the concept of «peace» as an exclusive asset of the ruling party.

 Another narrative used by official Budapest is economic security through peace. The government links economic difficulties (inflation, energy crisis) exclusively to Europe’s «war psychosis» arguing that only Orbán’s position saves Hungary from direct involvement in the conflict.

To delegitimize the opposition, the regime’s opponents are defined as foreign «puppets». And to neutralize the popularity of Peter Magyar, the Fidesz propaganda machine uses the technique of dehumanization and declaring him an object of external control.

Thus, Orban’s publications Origo and Magyar Nemzet systematically call Magyar «the new protégé of the Soros network». The main idea: he is not an independent politician, but just another tool for «overthrowing Hungary’s sovereignty».

And after Magyar became a member of the European Parliament, propaganda began to claim that he was «following the orders of European bureaucrats». He was accused of being ready to «surrender» Hungary on migration and gender policy in exchange for EU support.

Magyar is also accused of being a «product of Brussels» designed to overthrow a sovereign government, which fits into Orbán’s long-standing narrative of fighting a «liberal empire».

Origo published the article «Kiderült, mi Brüsszel terve Magyarországgal – ez ésétő észépétés» (Brussels’ plan for Hungary revealed – it is absolutely terrifying). Origo writes: «The Tisza Party is a creation of Brussels; the intention to change the government is financed from Kyiv and Brussels in the hope of creating a pro-Ukrainian and pro-Brussels government», Viktor Orbán said in an interview with the Patrióta YouTube channel.

The Prime Minister emphasized that there is an agreement between Brussels and Kyiv on how Ukraine should or can be brought into the European Union, and this agreement states that «Hungary is a problem», and therefore «the Hungarian government must be removed». The entire «Tisa» party and everything that surrounds it is a «Brussels creation», which was created so that instead of the Hungarian national government in Hungary there would be a government friendly to Brussels and Ukraine. Which would let Ukrainians into the European Union and carry out the instructions of Brussels, which the Hungarian government and the Prime Minister of Hungary personally still refuse, whether it be migration, energy, or money that should be sent to Ukraine».

It is truly impossible to imagine a greater «horror» than Ukraine and the EU. But according to Orban: «the European idea of ​​building and arming a powerful Ukrainian army with European money contradicts the security interests of Hungary. Today, Ukraine poses a threat to Hungary, and in the future, an increasingly strong Ukrainian army on Hungary’s eastern borders could cause many problems. That is why we will not participate in financing the Ukrainian army».

This manipulative tactic is used to create deep social divisions. It offers a rigid binary logic: either you unconditionally support Viktor Orbán as the only «savior of the nation»” or you are branded as a «foreign element» acting against the interests of the state.

The Hungarian authorities have actually borrowed the Kremlin’s propaganda technique, where the person of dictator Putin is identified with the fate of the entire country. Now the same destructive narrative is being imposed on Hungarians: «there is Orban – there is Hungary, there is no Orban – there is no Hungary».

Orban is becoming for Hungary what Putin became for the Russian Federation – an «unalternative» symbol of statehood. From which we can conclude that a process of creeping «Putinization» is underway in Hungary, when Viktor Orban is equated with the state itself.

All of this is presented simply and clearly by manipulators of public opinion for those in the Hungarian hinterland who have no alternative sources of information and are forced to read exclusively Orban’s media.

In this way, the political discourse is narrowed to a choice between loyalty to Viktor Orban and the status of a «hostile element», which effectively eliminates the possibility of constructive opposition or neutrality. And defining Magyar as a puppet allows propaganda not to respond to his specific accusations of corruption, but simply to cross him out of the field of «their own».

Orban has so many «enemies» around him. And one of the main ones is Ukraine. Therefore, it is not surprising that he calls Ukraine a strategic «enemy». Well, if Ukraine is a strategic «enemy» for him, then in this case, the totalitarian Russian Federation, which has been waging its bloody war with it for almost four years, becomes a strategic ally. I wonder how many Hungarians want to see Putin as a «friend» of Hungary?

The anti-Ukrainian position synchronizes with Moscow’s interests, providing Hungary with preferential prices for Russian energy, which is a critical element in maintaining the loyalty of the electorate through low tariffs.

In addition, to the Kremlin’s delight, Orbán has already begun accusing Ukraine of interfering in the election process, without providing any evidence, of course. This paves the way for delegitimizing the election results in the event of a defeat for the incumbent government.

The propaganda trick of the pro-government media is that they brand the regime’s opposition as «pro-Ukrainian», which in the Hungarian context (due to the issue of minorities and energy) is presented as a betrayal of national interests. And to inflate an even greater atmosphere of siege, a powerful wave of espionage is launched. Word of mouth spread statements about the presence of Ukrainian special services in Hungary, which allegedly work in favor of «Tysa».

So for Orbán, Ukraine is not a subject of international relations, but an instrument of domestic political struggle. The radicalization of rhetoric indicates Orbán’s vulnerability to the ratings of Peter Magyar. If this strategy works, it will become a roadmap for «illiberal survival» in Europe; if not, Hungary may begin a painful process of reintegration into the European mainstream.

Pro-Moscow Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his political accomplices, the oligarchs, are afraid of losing, because then they will have to answer for everything they have done in Hungary without hindrance for many years.

The 2026 campaign is an example of the «politics of fear», where real problems (corruption, healthcare) are replaced by the artificially structured threat of war. That is why the «politics of fear» has been launched so powerfully, as the last argument in order not to lose power.

Orban is trying to convince voters that a victory for Péter Magyar will lead to the sending of Hungarian soldiers to the front and the abolition of social benefits. The effectiveness of this strategy will depend on whether Péter Magyar can maintain his image as a true “conservative” without succumbing to the provocation of being drawn into foreign policy disputes.

Here, Péter Magyar is treading carefully. He criticizes Orbán’s corruption, but often avoids direct confrontation with the popular theses in Hungary about the «need for peace at any cost». The decisive factor will be whether he can offer the voter a safe alternative without appearing to be an “agent of external influence”.

The Magyar phenomenon has become the biggest shock to Hungarian politics in the last ten years. It is a challenge not only for Viktor Orbán, but also for the entire architecture of Budapest’s relations with the EU and Ukraine. Will Péter Magyar become the «Hungarian Tusk» for Kyiv and Brussels?