Viktor Orbán has long enjoyed warm relations with Vladimir Putin. Since the Hungarian far-right leader returned to the prime minister’s office in 2010, he has met the Russian president some eleven times — the most recent a February 1 summit to negotiate energy imports, just weeks before the Kremlin-ordered invasion of Ukraine.

Orbán has often insisted that his ties to Moscow are just a matter of pragmatism. In a 2015 interview, he told Politico: “What I represent is not my opinion but the interests of the Hungarian nation. [ . . . ] So, we have to have a good balanced relationship with the Russians. [ . . . ] Putin is someone you can cooperate with.”

Such claims have been shaken in recent weeks by Russia’s brutal assault against Ukraine, which directly borders Hungary. Not only has the invasion destroyed the lives of millions, but some four hundred thousand people have fled to Hungary itself. Orbán has mounted something of a change of tone — insisting he stands “neither for Russia or Ukraine,” only for Hungary. Yet even this neutrality clearly sets him apart from the European Union’s otherwise united front behind Kiev.