Hungary has placed the gas pipeline that straddles the Serbian border under military protection, the prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has said, as accusations of a false-flag operation continued to swirl before a crunch election at the weekend and an official visit on Tuesday from the US vice-president, JD Vance.
Orbán travelled to Hungary’s southern border with Serbia on Monday, one day after Serbia said it had found “explosives of devastating power” near a pipeline that carries Russian natural gas to Hungary and beyond.
The development, coming days before a hard-fought election in which Orbán is trailing in most polls, sparked accusations by Hungary’s leading opposition candidate of a possible “false-flag” operation aimed at influencing the ballot.
Orbán has yet to address the claims and sought instead to emphasise on Monday their seriousness. “This pipeline is important, it is our lifeline,” he said in a video posted on social media. “We conducted an inspection, and I can report to the Hungarian public that the Hungarian defence forces are capable of placing this pipeline under military protection and, if necessary, defending it.”
Earlier he and several government officials had sought to imply that Ukraine was involved in the incident – a charge roundly rejected by Kyiv, which said it had most likely been a “Russian false-flag operation as part of Moscow’s heavy interference in Hungarian elections”.
Orbán, who since taking power in 2010 has turned Hungary into what he calls an “illiberal democracy”, is also the EU’s most Moscow-friendly leader and has blocked aid packages for Ukraine.
The claims are a glimpse of the tensions that have gripped the central European country as Orbán seeks to convince voters of the threat of the war in Ukraine. Polls suggest Orbán’s messaging, which also pushes his Fidesz party as the safest pair of hands amid the volatility, is falling flat as he faces an unprecedented challenge from Péter Magyar, a former top member of Fidesz.
Magyar described on Monday on social media Orbán’s remarks regarding the pipeline as “nothing more than the cheap theatre of a fearful regime”. That the backdrop of Orbán’s remarks included a poster that read: “Comrades, it’s over,” was just a funny coincidence, he added.
Speaking late on Sunday, Đuro Jovanić, the director of Belgrade’s counterintelligence Military Security Agency (VBA), countered Fidesz’s suggestion that Ukraine was responsible for the incident, saying it was “not true”. The markings on the explosives, while not indicative of those who organised the plot, were American, he added.
While most countries did not comment on the incident, the Kremlin said on Monday, without evidence, it believed that Ukraine had planted the explosives. “And prior to this, as we know, the Kyiv regime was directly involved in such acts of sabotage against critical energy infrastructure,” the Kremlin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters. “It is highly likely that signs of the Kyiv regime’s involvement will be found this time too,” he added.
On Monday, after several journalists said they had heard rumblings that something might happen around Easter involving a gas pipeline and Serbia and Russia, a former senior counterintelligence officer, Peter Buda, said the potential plans had been an open secret among many. “Plans for this false-flag attack had been circulating since February,” he told the Guardian.
The uncertainty hovering over Hungary that Orbán could use the incident to prevent the election from going ahead as planned on 12 April – concerns voiced by Magyar – comes as the US vice-president and the second lady land in Hungary for a two-day visit.
The visit has sparked questions over why Vance and his wife, Usha, are carving out time to visit Budapest as the US administration faces a threat of escalation in its five-week war on Iran.
Since returning to power, Trump and his government have broken with the principle among western democracies – to which past US presidents have adhered – of not taking sides in foreign elections. Instead, the Trump administration openly shows support for leaders it sees as compatible with Maga ideology and foreign policy priorities – regardless of their democratic credentials.
“Hungary is their El Dorado,” said Jacob Heilbrunn, the editor of National Interest. “Vance has always been besotted with Hungary for political and religious reasons.”
The veneration spans across much of the current US administration. Orbán has been lauded by Trump’s former adviser Steve Bannon as “Trump before Trump”, while Kevin Roberts, the head of the Heritage Foundation thinktank that produced Project 2025, a far-right blueprint for Trump’s second term, once said: “Modern Hungary is not just a model for conservative statecraft, but the model.”
While Trump has repeatedly endorsed Orbán, describing the rightwing populist leader as a “fantastic guy” and a “strong and powerful leader”, Heilbrunn saw Vance’s visit as a hint that Trump believed Orbán could lose the election. “Trump hates to be associated with a loser, so he is sending Vance to be the fall guy,” he said.
The visit, during which officials have said Vance will hold a joint press conference with Orbán before the US vice-president speaks at a mass rally “on the occasion of Hungarian-American friendship day”, underscores the symbolic consequences the election will have for far-right movements. In January, nearly a dozen rightwing leaders came together to endorse Orbán in a video.
If Orbán were to lose the elections, it would be a “crashing blow” for the Maga movement, said Heilbrunn. “They have staked almost everything on Hungary as a vanguard to erode and undermine the EU and to bolster Putin’s ability to threaten Ukraine.”
“We’ll talk about any number of things related to the US-Hungary relationship,” Vance told the press as he departed from Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington. “Obviously, I’m sure Europe and Ukraine and all the other stuff will figure in pretty prominently.”
Vance is scheduled to meet Orbán and deliver a speech on “the rich partnership between the United States and Hungary”, according to a statement from his office.
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