Vance slams Zelenskiy comments about Hungary’s Orban
US Vice President JD Vance said that the Ukrainian president made “scandalous” comments about Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and repeated his accusations that Budapest was trying to influence the elections there by using Kiev’s energy resources.
Vance’s remarks came during his visit to Budapest, aimed at boosting the chances of nationalist Orban, who faces the toughest test of his 16-year rule in the April 12 elections seen as crucial for the influence of supporters of Donald Trump’s MAGA movement in Europe.
As Hungary’s tense relations with Ukraine came to the fore in the election campaign, Budapest accused Kiev of deliberately stopping the flow of Russian oil through the Druzhba pipeline in order to influence the ballot measure.
Hungary responded by blocking a 90 billion euro ($149 billion) EU loan to Ukraine, prompting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to say he could provide the address of the person in charge of the Ukrainian military who “can talk to him in his language.”
Speaking at a Hungarian university, Vance said Orban told him about Zelenskiy’s remarks.
“This is completely scandalous,” Vance said Wednesday.
“You should never allow a foreign head of government to threaten the head of government of an allied country.”
Vance later accused the media of applying double standards in their coverage of the 2016 US presidential election and allegations of foreign interference in elections in Hungary.
“You saw this in 2016, when a lot of American media said that the Russian government’s purchase of $500,000 worth of Facebook ads was a real scandal… This is foreign influence,” he said.
“But the European Union threatening to withhold billions of dollars from Hungary because you protect your borders does not count as foreign influence… Ukrainians causing suffering to the Hungarian people by shutting down pipelines in order to influence elections does not count as foreign influence.”
Budapest is in the middle of a long-running dispute with the European Union over issues ranging from judicial independence to the treatment of immigrants.
