{"id":9711,"date":"2026-04-14T23:05:22","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T23:05:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/orbans-loss-wont-stop-russian-influence-campaigns-but-it-shows-theyre-beatable\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T23:05:23","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T23:05:23","slug":"orbans-loss-wont-stop-russian-influence-campaigns-but-it-shows-theyre-beatable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/orbans-loss-wont-stop-russian-influence-campaigns-but-it-shows-theyre-beatable\/","title":{"rendered":"Orb\u00e1n\u2019s loss won\u2019t stop Russian influence campaigns, but it shows they\u2019re beatable"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The electoral defeat of Hungary\u2019s Viktor Orb\u00e1n dealt a blow to Russia\u2019s foreign-influence operations\u2014and illustrated how the Kremlin\u2019s approach is changing. In the victory of the opposition-party candidate, other Western nations can draw lessons for confronting Russia\u2019s continuing efforts.<\/p>\n

Orb\u00e1n was a key player in Vladimir Putin\u2019s effort to weaken the European Union and its support for Ukraine. In February, the prime minister blocked a 90-million-euro loan that would have funded Ukrainian defense and civil infrastructure. His government also tried to block EU sanctions against Russian oil interests. In March, news broke of Orb\u00e1n\u2019s foreign minister collaborating with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov to influence EU voting. Orb\u00e1n himself accused Ukraine, without evidence, of planning to attack pipelines that carry fuel to Europe and even of plotting to send troops to his home. With Orb\u00e1n\u2019s loss, Putin loses a critical aide in his drive to establish a \u201csphere of influence\u201d over a fragmented Europe.<\/p>\n

Extraordinary efforts<\/strong><\/p>\n

Russian efforts to keep its Hungarian friend in power included a coordinated disinformation campaign launched in January, when false narratives began to spout from TikTok accounts and other social media accounts affiliated with a Russian group called Storm-1516. <\/strong>The first claimed that Tisza Party candidate P\u00e9ter Magyar\u2014Orb\u00e1n\u2019s main rival and ultimately the election\u2019s winner\u2014\u201cused a humanitarian trip to Ukraine as cover to divert $16.7 million in European aid.\u201d A second claimed that Magyar and others conspired with Ukraine to embezzle $30 million in international aid.<\/p>\n

Researchers at Clemson University tracked the false narratives. Others included rumors of\u00a0 \u201creinstating military drafts, offending world leaders, and drug addiction,\u201d the researchers write in a new research paper. \u201cStorm-1516 targeted Hungary with 11 narratives identified for this report, several of which received thousands of reposts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Storm-1516 collaborates with Matryoshka, another Kremlin-backed group. Discovered in 2023 by French researchers monitoring Russian attacks on France\u2019s national elections, Matryoshka \u201cimpersonates North American and European public figures and media outlets, including French ones\u201d to spread disinformation about Ukraine and, sometimes, French politicians.<\/p>\n

Storm-1516 and Matryoshka increased their Hungarian efforts in February and March.\u00a0 They baselessly accused Orb\u00e1n detractors of child sex abuse. They accused Ukraine of attempting to foment a coup. In April, the Kremlin dispatched Putin\u2019s First Deputy Chief of Staff, Sergei Kiriyenko, to coordinate online campaign strategy with the Orb\u00e1n regime.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This drew calls for an investigation from the EU Commission, which said that the approach \u201cis modeled on previous interference campaigns that Russia has rolled out in other countries, most recently Moldova. The interference team is reportedly deployed on behalf of Russia\u2019s military intelligence service, the GRU, and operating out of the Russian embassy in Budapest.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Russia\u2019s measures were muted compared to Orb\u00e1n\u2019s own party, Fidesz, which funded proxy groups such as the National Resistance Movement. Fidesz and its allies were the election cycle\u2019s biggest creators of AI-generated content, according to the independent Hungarian monitor Lakmusz and the European Digital Media Observatory.<\/p>\n

\u201cResearchers attributed some targeted disinformation attacks in the Hungarian campaign to known Russian groups. However, their reach and impact so far have remained limited, at least compared to the disinformation\u201d produced by the Orb\u00e1n regime, EDMO wrote.<\/p>\n

What this shows<\/strong><\/p>\n

All this illustrates changes in how Russia is waging digital influence warfare.\u00a0<\/p>\n

First, Russia is creating vastly more fake social-media accounts. The Clemson researchers found 36 TikTok accounts that purported to be legitimate marketing efforts, building up followings of 10,000 to 80,000 followers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore January 2026, these accounts did not engage with or post Storm-1516 content. Since then, the accounts have shifted from commercial marketing and promotional content to posting political content aligned with Russian narratives,\u201d the Clemson researchers write.<\/p>\n

Such influence campaigns often work alongside physical hybrid-warfare tactics such as sabotage and political violence, Soufan Center observers wrote in March.<\/p>\n

Russia is also working to put a local face on its influence efforts. The Kremlin engages a friendly politician in a target country to take the lead, then boosts his or her message with fake accounts and a growing network of Kremlin-paid influencers.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy leveraging influencers and the trust they have from existing communities, Russia can engage in focused messaging targeting specific communities with narratives that those communities may already be inclined to believe,\u201d the Clemson researchers write.<\/p>\n

When such politicians win, they erect institutional obstacles to prevent opposing candidates from displacing them. The Orb\u00e1n government \u201chad worked on every district, just crafting it to make it perfect for its own strengths and weaknesses. They had almost total control of radio, television and media. They were using massive, massive state resources for their own political purposes,\u201d Thomas Carothers, director of Carnegie’s Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program at the Carnegie Endowment, said on a podcast this week. So Magyar \u201cwas going against, you know, it looked like every possible obstacle.\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance have been open boosters of Orb\u00e1n and his tactics. Vance campaigned for Orb\u00e1n\u2014even repeating a Matryoshka false claim:\u00a0 that Ukraine, not Russia, was interfering in Hungary\u2019s election.<\/p>\n

Russian efforts in Hungary will continue.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cEven without Viktor Orb\u00e1n, Fidesz controls roughly 80 percent of Hungary’s state media landscape and remains a willing partner. If anything, Russian operations will be even more network-driven, leveraging political allies and entrenched media infrastructure to sustain anti-Ukraine narratives and erode trust in the EU,\u201d said former Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research Ellen McCarthy who now leads the Trust in Media Cooperative.<\/p>\n

They will also find new targets outside of Hungary.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIncreasingly, they are targeting regional elections, trying to influence countries within their sphere of influence. We already know who their next target is: Armenia,\u201d which has elections coming up in June, said Darren Linvill, one of the authors of the Clemson paper and co-director of the Watt Family Innovation Center Media Forensics Hub. Linvill pointed to several examples of new false social media accounts that he says were set up he says to target those elections. \u201cFrom Russia’s perspective, this is self-evidently worth it, largely because these efforts are cheap to produce and have very little downside. In the current political environment one could even say there has been no downside.\u201d<\/p>\n

In their March report, the Soufan Center says Russia\u2019s ultimate hybrid-warfare goal isn\u2019t actually to help one candidate over another, but to undermine democratic societies\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis strategy drains the financial resources, military capabilities, and political bandwidth of countries supporting Ukraine, or withdrawing from its traditional sphere of influence, while providing a testing ground to refine tactics for potential future conflict with NATO. Erode the guardrails that make democracies resistant to interference by exploiting pre-existing societal schisms, undermining trust in institutions and keeping populations polarized and confused.\u201d<\/p>\n

Magyar\u2019s win, however, also offers a blueprint for beating Russian and Russian-aligned election interference. Magyar was particularly gifted at social-media campaigning, visiting more than 700 cities and towns across Hungary and continuously putting out social-media content that was watchable and nimble, said Carothers, a part-time resident of Hungary.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHe’d walk into a public building where the elevators were broken, and stand in a broken elevator and go, ‘Why does this elevator not work? Why does nothing work in this country?’ People loved them. Very clever social media campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n

The opposition candidate was also willing to face Russian disinformation head-on and call out specific attacks even before they hit the internet. On March 10, Magyar took to Facebook to warn of a new AI-enabled disinformation campaign targeting him.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the coming days, the Fidesz party, together with Russian services, will launch a smear and disinformation campaign that has already been tested in Moldova, primarily on social media, particularly on TikTok,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the biggest factor that drove an election turnout above 80 percent was the simple fact that Hungarians are increasingly sensitive to Russia\u2019s growing attacks on democracy, wrote Matt Steinglass, the Europe editor for The Economist<\/em>. \u201cPeople were much more concerned than we had thought about the country’s shift towards Russia. They were concerned about leaving the European Union. More and more news started coming out about how Russia had sent social media operatives to Budapest to try to help Fidesz retain power.\u201d<\/p>\n

That is, perhaps, a warning for other politicians who saw Orb\u00e1n as a model.\n\n<\/svg><\/p>\n<\/div>\n