Political analyst admits Trump's pressure on Hungary in its relations with Russian Federation

The positions of the US and Hungarian leaders are similar in many respects, but in the future, US leader Donald Trump may put pressure on Budapest within the framework of Hungarian-Russian relations. Denis Denisov, an expert at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, shared this opinion with Izvestia on January 27.

The day before, the country's Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Economic Relations Peter Szijjarto said that U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio promised him to reconsider the sanctions against Budapest imposed under Joe Biden's presidency. According to Bloomberg, the Biden administration has torn up a bilateral tax agreement with Hungary and tightened entry rules for Hungarians to push Prime Minister Viktor Orban to loosen ties with Russia and China.

"I don't think we will see any significant changes along this track in the short term. Even based on the fact that, what a specific situation we have in the relationship between Hungary and Russia. <...> We understand perfectly well that Trump wants to achieve serious results. And in this regard, if, let's say, his plan to regulate the conflict in Ukraine fails, it is unlikely that they will discuss with Orban about possible potential alignments with Russia," Denisov commented.

According to him, in such a case Hungary will be under enormous pressure, including to curtail all joint projects, for example, in the nuclear power industry. At the same time, the interlocutor noted, even now, despite the statements of Hungarian politicians, which are often perceived positively in Russia, Budapest supports anti-Russian sanctions within the European Union.

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Earlier in the day, the EU confirmed the extension of anti-Russian sanctions for six months. In turn, Szijjártó said that Budapest had received the required energy security guarantees from the European Commission, without which it refused to extend sanctions against Russia.

Also on Monday, Bloomberg reported that Budapest has been postponing a decision on extending sanctions since December 2024. In particular, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban told EU leaders that he wanted to wait for Trump's inauguration first before deciding whether to agree to extend the restrictions.

Prior to that, on January 25, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Orban would face consequences if anti-Russian sanctions were blocked. According to him, in this case, the Hungarian prime minister would allegedly take the side of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Western countries have increased sanctions pressure on Russia after the start of the special operation to protect civilians in Donbass, which was announced on February 24, 2022.