New trouble for Orbán
“No matter what it is, I am at your service”
Updated April 7, 2026 – 4:51 p.mReading time: 2 minutes
In a phone call, Hungary’s Prime Minister Kremlin boss Putin offered himself as a silent helper. The conversation, which has now become public, weighs heavily on Orbán.
A few days before the parliamentary elections in Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is coming under pressure because of his proximity to Russia. Orbán offered Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin his help in a phone call on October 17, 2025, “no matter what it’s about.” This emerges from a previously unpublished transcript of the conversation, which is available to the Bloomberg news agency.
According to the Hungarian government’s official minutes of the conversation, Orbán said to Putin in the phone call: “Yesterday our friendship reached such a high level that I can help in any way. No matter what it is about, if I can help, I am at your service.” What Orbán was referring to by “yesterday” is unclear. But he underlined his offer to Putin with a fable.
According to Bloomberg, Orbán compared himself to a mouse who helps a captive lion to freedom out of gratitude because the lion had previously spared the mouse’s life. According to the minutes of the conversation, this image caused laughter from the Kremlin chief. According to Bloomberg, the central topic of the conversation was the possibility of a high-level meeting between Russian and US representatives in Hungary.
Putin described Hungary as one of the few places in Europe that would be considered for such a summit, “perhaps even the only one.” In Putin’s opinion, in addition to the Russian and US foreign ministers, their Hungarian counterpart should also take part in the meeting. The planned summit did not take place; However, the conversation shows the great familiarity between the two politicians.
Orbán praises his relationship with Putin, which has grown over time, while the latter emphasizes Hungary’s “independent and flexible” stance on Russia’s war against Ukraine. At the beginning of the conversation, Orbán congratulated Putin on his birthday on October 7th, and at the end both briefly discussed their health and their daily routines. A Hungarian official familiar with the conversation confirmed the authenticity of the transcript to Bloomberg.
