AI at the service of Orban — how the fear of war and Ukraine became weapons of the Hungarian campaign

Hungary is entering the final phase of the election campaign with a troubling and very modern sign of the times: artificial intelligence is being used here not as a neutral technological tool, but as part of a political pressure machine. This is not about random experiments with social media videos or harmless digital fashion. Before the eyes of all Europe, AI is being turned into a tool of emotional blackmail, disinformation, and the imposition of a worldview favorable to the authorities.

The main target of this campaign is opposition politician Peter Magyar and his party “Tisa,” who have become the main challenge for Viktor Orban and “Fidesz.” Instead of a substantive debate about the country’s future, the economy, the crisis of trust, and societal fatigue, voters are repeatedly offered another scheme: fear, war, Ukraine, external threat, and the supposedly only force capable of “saving” the country from catastrophe.

For the Israeli audience, this story is important not only as a Hungarian internal plot. It shows how quickly new technologies become political weapons where power relies not on argument but on suggestion. And it is especially telling that one of the central elements of this campaign is once again an anti-Ukrainian narrative — familiar, convenient, and dangerously resonant with Russian propaganda.

How AI was turned into a weapon of the election campaign

Fear instead of discussion

One of the most resonant episodes of the campaign is related to a video published on the “Fidesz” social media pages.

In the video, a little girl sits by the window waiting for her father to return from the war. Then a captured man appears, and after that, the viewer is shown his death. Formally, the authors indicate that the video before them was created by artificial intelligence, but the message is extremely direct: if the opposition wins, Hungary will supposedly be drawn into war, and Hungarian families will pay a terrible price for it.

This is the key technology of such agitation. People are not given facts, no connection is proven between the opposition’s program and the real threat, and it is not explained why Magyar supposedly leads the country to war. Instead, he is placed in an emotional setting of someone else’s death, family tragedy, and irreversible horror.

The political logic here is simple and harsh: scare before the voter starts asking questions.

Fake images as the new norm

The use of AI did not stop there. In March, a structure supporting the ruling force distributed another video where artificially created Ursula von der Leyen and Peter Magyar supposedly discuss sending money to Ukraine. This time, the viewer was not even explained that it was a neural network forgery.

This is where the most dangerous stage begins.

When the authorities and affiliated platforms start replicating such content, the environment of public perception itself changes. People are no longer just imposed with an interpretation of events. They are gradually accustomed to living in a space where visual lies are presented as an almost permissible political technique, and then further spread by media, bloggers, party speakers, and the prime minister himself.

As a result, society is drawn into a state of constant informational uncertainty. The viewer no longer always understands where the real recording is and where the generated scene is. And when the line between genuine and artificial begins to blur, the winner is almost always not the one with stronger arguments, but the one with more resources for mass production of fear.

Why Ukraine became the main scarecrow for the Hungarian voter

The anti-Ukrainian narrative as a political crutch for power

The accusations against Magyar are built around a familiar scheme: he supposedly wants to drag Hungary into war, send money to Ukraine, obey Brussels, and even reinstate mandatory service. Magyar and his party deny this, emphasizing that they do not intend to send troops to Ukraine and do not propose introducing conscription. But in such a campaign, this is almost secondary.

When one side controls a huge administrative and media resource, the task is not to prove. The task is to repeat endlessly. Repetition, reinforced by visual shock and AI content, becomes an independent political weapon.

That is why Ukraine plays such a convenient role in this campaign. It is used not as a subject of foreign policy, but as an emotional symbol of threat. Through it, the Hungarian authorities find it easier to explain anything to the voter: the risk of war, the need to rally around the current regime, the danger of change, the harm of European pressure, and even the need to endure their own internal problems.

Why this looks alarming for Israel

For the reader in Israel, the broader meaning is important here. When power begins to systematically use another country’s war as a convenient tool for internal mobilization, it is no longer just populism. It is a method of political management through someone else’s tragedy.

Such stories are especially closely read on platforms like NAnews — Israel News | Nikk.Agency, because they show: anti-Ukrainian rhetoric in Europe has long ceased to be only an ideological dispute. It becomes part of a new model of informational control, where an external threat is used to restructure the internal consciousness of society.

For the Jewish state, this is not an abstract lesson.

Israel itself lives in a reality where propaganda, manipulation of images, emotional pressure, and political use of the war theme have long been part of international struggle. Therefore, the Hungarian example is important as a warning: technologies that are being tested in one European campaign today may be applied much more widely tomorrow — and against any democracy that they want to destabilize from within.

What this story says about the state of Hungary itself

Unequal battle: state machine against social media opposition

One of the most noticeable features of the current campaign is the colossal imbalance of resources. “Fidesz” retains state money, administrative support, loyal media infrastructure, and the ability to amplify the desired signal on all platforms many times over. Against this backdrop, Magyar reaches the audience mainly through social media, personal presentation, and a more lively, less official political image.

This contrast explains a lot.

The opposition tries to appear closer to the voter, younger, freer, and more natural. The authorities, on the contrary, rely on a huge machine of repetition and suggestion.

But even if Magyar’s engagement is higher on social media, it does not negate the main thing: when one side has already learned to use AI as a means of pressure, the political environment itself begins to change much deeper than for one electoral cycle.

Hungary becomes a testing ground for new propaganda

Today, the country looks like a laboratory where classical state propaganda is combined with neural networks, fake videos, fake visual “evidence,” and constant suggestion that the country is on the brink of war precisely because of the opposition. In such a system, lies become not an exception, but a method.

And this is the most unpleasant conclusion.

It is no longer just about the fate of one election and not just about Orban’s struggle to retain power. It is about a deeper transformation of European politics, where technological manipulation begins to displace normal debate about the future.

If such a model is entrenched, it will not disappear after the elections. It will remain as a working mechanism — against the opposition, against independent media, against any inconvenient external plot, and against any reality that prevents the authorities from maintaining control.

That is why the question today is broader than just “who will win in Hungary.” What is much more important is how far Europe is willing to allow a political system to go in which artificial intelligence no longer works for the development of society, but for the production of fear, distorted reality, and controlled public anxiety.