Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán shakes hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin in Moscow on November 28, 2025. Alexander Nemenov/AFP/Getty Images

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow Friday to shore up Hungary’s energy supplies and discuss efforts to end the war in Ukraine.

Having spurned chances to reduce its dependence on Russian fossil fuels, Hungary was facing a violent economic shock after the Trump administration last month imposed sanctions on Russia’s two biggest oil producers. Before the sanctions were announced, Orbán had warned that, without energy imports from Russia, Hungary’s economy would be brought “to its knees.”

But Orbán, a hard-right populist and a darling of the MAGA movement, was

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