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The Kremlin is downplaying Viktor Orban’s election defeat as Russia loses a key European ally. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban conceded defeat after 16 years in power to Hungarian lawyer Peter Magyar, who won an overwhelming victory for the opposition Tisza party, securing over two-thirds of Hungarian parliamentary seats. Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told a Russian journalist on April 13 that the Kremlin will not congratulate Magyar as Hungary remains an “unfriendly country” that supports sanctions against Russia. Peskov told a journalist on the Russian state TV program Vesti on April 13 that relations between Russia and the European Union (EU) cannot worsen after Hungary’s elections, as they are already at rock bottom. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov emphasized that Russia is ready to build a relationship with the new Hungarian government, depending on how the Hungarian government “understands its own national interests.” Prominent Russian milbloggers expressed mixed reactions ranging from downplaying Orban’s defeat and questioning his alignment with Russia to voicing concerns that the Kremlin has lost its main ally in the EU, who vetoed decisions unfavorable to Russia. Orban consistently opposed and undermined the EU’s efforts to provide military and financial assistance to Ukraine, aligning with the Kremlin’s interests, and Russian President Vladimir Putin personally endorsed Orban in the 2026 Hungarian parliamentary election. The Kremlin is likely downplaying the loss of its key ally in Europe to project confidence that Ukraine will still face pressure to accept Russia’s terms to end the war.
An open-source analysis of Russian contract recruitment reports that Russian recruitment continues to decline as battlefield casualties rise, consistent with other indicators of Russian recruiting and manpower challenges that ISW has observed. German Institute for International and Security Affairs economist Janis Kluge assessed on April 12 based on an analysis of the budgets of Russian federal subjects that Russian forces recruited between 800 and 1,000 soldiers a day in the first quarter of 2026 (between January 1 and March 31, 2026), compared to 1,000 to 1,200 a day in the first quarter of 2025, a 20 percent decrease year-over-year. Kluge noted that regional increases in one-time signing bonuses failed to prevent slowing recruitment despite average signing bonuses reaching a record high of 1.47 million rubles (roughly $19,300) in March 2026. Kluge also assessed, based on Russian Finance Ministry data, that Russian authorities paid compensation to the families of around 25,000 killed Russian soldiers in the first quarter of 2026, compared to around 20,000 killed in the first quarter of 2025 and almost 10,000 in the first quarter of 2024. Kluge extrapolated these total compensation figures from data from 17 Russian federal subjects. ISW is unable to verify the underlying data and conclusions in Kluge’s analysis, but his conclusions are consistent with multiple other indicators that ISW has observed that Russia is increasingly suffering recruiting and manpower challenges, such as reported recruiting shortfalls relative to casualties, the commitment of strategic reserves, increased signing bonuses, and expanded covert mobilization efforts.
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