Just a few short days ago very few observers would have expected Hungary’s Viktor Orbán to drop his veto at the European Council in order to allow the latest – and much needed – tranche of aid to Ukraine.

€50 billion was on the table, and due to the EU’s unanimity rules Orbán had been widely expected to veto the deal, leaving Ukraine facing a €48 billion budget deficit.

As the leaders gathered in Brussels’ European Quarter, EU farmers – unwitting pawns in the game – were blocking the streets of Brussels, toppling statues, and lighting fires outside the European Parliament.

It was supposed to be the opening chapter in what many believe to have been a Russian orchestrated series of events – albeit with covert support from Hungarian actors in Brussels.

Then Orbán went off-script and it all went wrong for Putin!

Russian State TV mouthpiece’s swift turn: from praising to vilifying Viktor Orbán as ‘That Dog” in mere minutes.

Olga Skabeyeva, a US State Department-sanctioned Russian propagandist known for her incendiary and aggressive tirades on the state-owned TV channel Russia-1, initially lauded Orban for his defiance against the EU leadership.

However, her stance swiftly soured following Orban’s apparent endorsement of EU financial aid to Ukraine.

Skabeyeva’s comments came after Orban, at the beginning of the EU Summit on the 1st of February, demanded a complete change of leadership for the bloc, openly mocking Brussels and emphasising the importance of farmers’ needs over Ukraine’s interests.

In a segment on Russia-1, Skabeyeva initially applauded Orban’s stance, commending him for his boldness in confronting the EU leadership:

However, Skabeyeva’s tone took a sharp turn when it was revealed that Orban had in fact voted in favour of allocating €50 billion in macro-financial assistance to Ukraine.

European leaders managed to win over Orbán with three additions:

An annual report by the European Commission on the implementation of the aid package; a debate at leaders’ level on the implementation of the package; and, if it is needed, in two years time the European Council will ask the Commission to propose a review of the new budget, according to the latest version of the draft European Council conclusions.

EU leaders added a line referring to earlier conclusions from December 2020 to guarantee that the way the rule of law in Hungary is evaluated by the European Commission is done in a fair and objective manner.

There may of course have been other incentives we will never know about.

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