Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán appeared in a YouTube podcast on the Patrióta channel on Tuesday, where he discussed the war in Ukraine and the upcoming Alaska summit between US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, accompanied by security policy expert György Nógrádi. During the broadcast, Orbán did not hold back in expressing his view on the current state of the conflict, also addressing the deteriorating relations between Budapest and Kyiv.
As the conversation turned to the much-discussed question of which side is winning the war, Orbán sharply remarked that people often speak of the conflict as if it were open-ended—but in his view, it is not. ‘The Ukrainians have lost the war. Russia has won,’ he stated firmly, adding that the only remaining question is when, and under what circumstances, the West—which stands behind Ukraine—will acknowledge this fact, and what consequences will follow.
Orbán went on to point out that Ukraine is in a very difficult position, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in particular is not in control of his own fate, as the country has not capitulated solely because it continues to receive weapons and money from the Europeans and—though to a decreasing extent—the Americans.
‘The Ukrainians have lost the war. Russia has won’
The discussion then shifted to Hungarian–Ukrainian relations, which are at a historical low point due to several factors—chief among them the restrictions of rights of the Transcarpathian Hungarian community in Ukraine, the Orbán government’s pro-peace stance from the outset of the war, and its blocking of Kyiv’s fast-track EU accession since March 2025. Only yesterday, Ukrainian forces carried out a drone attack on a key distribution station of the Druzhba oil pipeline in Russia’s Bryansk region. Hungary imports more than 80 per cent of its oil from Russia, and the Druzhba pipeline is a critical route in the country’s energy supply. Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó urged Ukraine not to jeopardize Hungary’s energy security—a pattern that has become all too common in recent years.
Orbán noted in the podcast that, given Hungary provides a significant share of Ukraine’s electricity and gas imports, it could, if it so chose, ‘bring Ukraine to collapse in a single day’. ‘If an accident happened—if some pylons fell, if some wires were cut—Ukraine would grind to a halt,’ he said.
However, Orbán continued, it is not in Hungary’s interest for Ukraine to collapse or become destabilized. ‘And they know exactly that it is not in our interest to bring down Ukraine or undermine its security,’ the prime minister said, explaining why Kyiv’s tone is often perceived as undiplomatic or disrespectful toward Budapest. He added that ‘a collapsing Ukraine on Hungary’s border would pose such a threat and risk—to public security, to terrorism, and to the life of the Hungarian minority living there—that Hungary is not willing to take it on.’
Watch the full video below:
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