The issue of Hungarians in Ukraine is a long-standing one, as you say. I do know that Ukraine's parliament has made moves to safeguard the rights of ethnic minorities in recent years, not helped by conditions of war, and it's obvious Orbán doesn't give a fuck about his expatriates and just wants to use them as cannonfodder in a wedge issue, just like his pal Putin's done with the issue of Ukrainian Russian speakers (of which Zelensky was one!).
If Orbán was unhappy about the Druzhba oil pipeline through Ukraine being taken out of action, he should have had a word with his pal Putin, who was responsible for bombing it. With friends like these ...
If he wasn't concerned beforehand about the security of a pipeline running through a war zone, well, he should have been.
If he's impatient that the Ukrainians aren't prioritizing fixing a link in their enemy's major source of income running through their territory while potentially being bombed to oblivion by that same enemy, he needs to damn well get real.
Croatia has offered alterrnative oil supplies via the Adria pipeline that leads from the Omišalj terminal in Croatia to Serbia, Slovenia and Bosnia & Herzegovina, and Hungary, running directly to Hungarian refineries.
Orbán has grumbled and brought up all sorts of excuses why this isn't a solution, as catalogued here:
Fact check: Does Hungary have alternatives to the Druzhba pipeline?
Budapest insists it is dependent on Russian crude oil, but analysts suggest this could be the result of economic and political decisions, as well as technical constraints.
...
Ukrainian officials say the damage was caused by a Russian strike and that repairs are challenging, compounded by the fact that Ukrainian engineers can only work during the day due to nightly air raids.
Hungary, meanwhile, has accused Kyiv of sabotage and dragging its heels on repairing the damage. In the midst of the issue, the European Commission has formally proposed an inspection and fact-finding mission into the incident.
The damage to the line, which carries oil from Russia to various points in Eastern European countries, has once again raised eyebrows about why Hungary continues to rely so heavily on Russian energy when so many other EU members have managed to wean themselves off it.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has long argued that Russian crude is essential for the country's energy security, and that switching supplies would raise costs and harm efficiency.
https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2026/03/31/fact-check-does-hungary-have-alternatives-to-the-druzhba-pipeline
Among Orbán's excuses for why Hungary actually
increased its dependency on Russian oil over the last few years from 61% to 93%, against the trend of other EU countries, was that the Adria pipeline charged too much for transit and didn't have sufficient capacity. He's downright lying on both counts (link as above):
According to CSD, transit fees for non-Russian crude imported via this pipeline are lower than those applied to Russian crude oil via the Druzhba pipeline, a difference of €12 per tonne via the Adria pipeline versus €21 per tonne via the Druzhba pipeline.
JANAF insists that the infrastructure has the capacity to meet demand for Hungary and Slovakia.
MOL Group is currently carrying out confirmatory capacity tests on the pipeline, along with plans to improve the pipeline's perfomance, as detailed here:
https://molgroup.info/en/media-centre/press-releases/10-month-series-of-capacity-tests-on-the-adria-pipeline-begin-on-march-11 (The linked article also includes a number of quotes from officials involved in Croatian oil transit that bear out much of what I've written above.)
I think there's much more to it than what you seem to be charitably suggesting is understandable sucking up to Putin through expediency, more a question of like minds and brazen opportunism that's served Orbán, but certainly not Hungary, well over the years.
I think it's stretching the bounds of expediency to invite a Kremlin dirty tricks team, including some notorious fixers, into your country to assist your election campaign (I won't mention Vance, but we know his agenda on the EU is close to Putin's), as Orbán's done.
It's also stretching expediency, along with credulity, to continually brand Ukraine as the source of all ills in a Hungary Orbán's been notoriously systematically looting during his time in office and which shares the kudos of being the poorest and most corrupt country in the EU (with Bulgaria) as a result.
I recall recently seeing Orbán being catcalled practically off the stage when he tried to pull some of his ritual Ukraine bashing in front of an outdoor crowd he'd seriously misjudged. It reminded me of Romania and the last days of Ceaușescu.
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