DAILY BEAST
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has come to be known as President Putin’s “Trojan horse” inside the European Union. He is the continent’s biggest hater of the U.S. Democratic Party, referring to liberals as his “enemies,” and he was the only European leader who congratulated Putin on his record fifth inauguration this month. The signs are growing that Orbán is following Putin’s path deeper and deeper into an autocracy that could shake up Europe.
In Budapest, there is an unmistakable authoritarian atmosphere. As someone who lived in Russia through most of Putin’s reign, the memories evoked include Nashi, the Kremlin’s far-right youth propaganda movement. Billboards across the city show the faces of Orbán’s opponents covered by huge dollar signs and accompanied by slogans that read: “They sold themselves by the thousands.” We saw many similar signs in Moscow starting around 2011 when Putin began a crackdown on the opposition that would entrench him in power and ultimately lead to the disastrous invasion of Ukraine.
It’s not just Putin inspiring Orbán. He welcomed President Xi Jinping to Budapest this month and declared China to be one of the “pillars of the new world order.” If China is dreaming of a 21st century dominated by autocrats not democrats, then Orbán wants to get on board. Xi’s appearance in Hungary underlined the growing “strategic partnership” between the nations who announced a host of new economic, diplomatic and business agreements. Putin was in Beijing this month to make a host of similar pronouncements himself.
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