The Hungarian prime minister said this in an interview with the Blikk Talk programme.
Orbán said that the friendly tone of his conversation with Putin did not indicate a special relationship between them, but rather valuable ties for the country.
"It is not about making personal friends, but about creating valuable connections for the country. This is a common formula in communication between politicians. There is nothing special about it," Orban said.
He added that he considers true friendship to be a "much deeper connection".
"In human terms, we cannot have such a relationship, because it would require herding pigs together, to put it in folk terms. You need a common youth, common trials, families that have known each other for generations. Personal friendship is a much deeper thing. In politics, it rather means a certain level of connection and respect," Orban said.
The Hungarian prime minister claims to call the US president, many European leaders, and the leaders of several Central Asian countries "friends". According to him, he and some Muslim leaders call each other "brothers" — and there is "nothing extraordinary" about that. Orban added that he hoped the intelligence services were working to find out the circumstances of the leak.
On 7 April, Bloomberg published a transcript of Orban's telephone conversation with Putin on 17 October 2025, provided by a source in the Hungarian government. During the conversation, Orban compared himself to a mouse helping a lion, referring to Putin, and said he was ready to be helpful "in any matter".
The next day, on 8 April, the Vsquare consortium of investigative journalists published audio recordings of conversations between Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for 2023-2025. According to the investigation, Szijjarto coordinated with Russia actions against the interests of Ukraine and the EU.
Hungary, led by Orban, is blocking the opening of negotiating clusters on Ukraine's accession to the European Union and is also blocking a €90 billion loan to Ukraine. In March, the country detained a collection vehicle of Oschadbank that was transporting currency to Ukraine. Hungary seized the funds and deported the bank's employees from the country. One of them was hospitalised after being questioned by Hungarian law enforcement.
Source: Suspilne Ukraine, A European Perspective
Published by Danylo Ostroverxov-Novyc'kyj on 9 April 2026 04:43 GMT+2