THE FALL OF DEMOCRACY IN HUNGARY

Abstract

The article is about Hungary during the reign of Viktor Orbán since 2010, which, being one of the most democratic countries in Europe, has changed its status in recent years. The reasons and consequences of the fall of democracy in Hungary are analyzed, what role did the Russian Federation play in this and how it is reflected in Ukrainian-Hungarian relations. It has been studied that among the main reasons for the dismantling of democracy, the concentration of power in the hands of V. Orbán and his political party «Fidesz», which led to the recognition in 2022 by the European Parliament of Hungary as a country with a «hybrid regime of electoral autocracy», is the most important. However, despite the criticism, V. Orbán’s policy still has considerable support among the Hungarian population. It was also found out that V. Orban’s foreign policy played an equally important role: flirting with V. Putin turned into open pro-Russian support against the background of Russian war crimes in Ukraine, which causes outrage not only from the Ukrainian side, but also from the European union.