While Orbán flaunts his close ties with the Kremlin, his electoral rival, Péter Magyar, has argued this is an Achilles’ heel, accusing the government of “outright treason” over its ties to Moscow.
The December summit in Moscow was the 16th meeting of the Russian-Hungarian Intergovernmental Commission on Economic Cooperation (IGC), which according to Russian state media was launched in 2005. The commission has met on a roughly annual basis in either Russia or Hungary since then — with a break between the 14th meeting in November 2021 and the 15th in September 2024. Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.
According to one of the documents, Russia and Hungary “addressed current issues of bilateral trade and economic cooperation, joint activities in the energy sector, industry, health care, agriculture, construction, and other areas of mutual interest, as well as in the cultural and humanitarian sphere” at the meeting in Moscow on Dec. 9, 2025. They also underscored the importance of “developing long-term, mutually beneficial ties between the two countries in areas of mutual interest.”
Asked about the contents of the documents and their ramifications for Hungary’s political trajectory, Szijjártó said only that “Hungary’s bilateral cooperation is guided by national interest, not by any pressure to conform to the extremely biased liberal mainstream media. Keep up the biased work!” Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to a request for comment.
Oil, gas, nuclear
POLITICO contacted independent experts familiar with Moscow’s working methods but could not independently verify the documents, which include instructions to Russian government departments on implementing the new commitments.
Among the points agreed, according to the documents, was a commitment to “reverse the negative trend in bilateral trade” after the transfer of goods fell as a result of the EU’s sanctions on Russia, implemented in response to Russia’s war in Ukraine. The agreement also opens the door to Russian companies breaking ground on new electricity and hydrogen projects in Hungary and closer cooperation on oil, gas and nuclear fuel.