US Vice President JD Vance speaks to the media with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban [not pictured] in Budapest, Hungary.

• US Vice President JD ‌Vance slammed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky over comments on Hungary.
• Vance visited Hungary to help Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s re-election bid.
• A Russian strike killed one person and wounded four in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region.

US Vice President JD ‌Vance said on Wednesday that Ukraine’s president had made “scandalous” comments about Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, as he echoed Budapest’s accusations that Kyiv was using energy supplies to try to influence elections there.

Vance’s remarks came during a visit to Budapest aimed at boosting the chances of the nationalist Orban, who faces the toughest challenge of his 16-year rule in a 12 April election seen as crucial for the influence of supporters of Donald Trump’s MAGA movement in Europe.

Hungary’s ⁠strained relations with Ukraine have taken centre stage in the election campaign, with Budapest accusing Kyiv of deliberately stopping flows of Russian oil through the Druzhba pipeline in an effort to sway the ballot.

Kyiv says the pipeline was damaged by a Russian drone attack in late January and it is fixing it as fast as it can.

Hungary responded by blocking a €90-billion ($105 billion) EU loan for Ukraine, prompting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to say he could give the address of whoever was responsible to the Ukrainian army, who could “speak with him in their own language”.

READ | US putting pressure on Ukraine to give Russia all of Donbas - Volodymyr Zelensky

“It’s completely scandalous,” Vance said.

“You should never have a foreign head of government... threatening the head of ‌government ⁠of an allied nation.”

Vance then accused the media of double standards in their coverage of alleged foreign interference in the 2016 US presidential election and in the Hungarian vote.

“You saw this back in 2016, where a lot of the American media said that it was a true scandal that the Russian government bought like $500 000 of Facebook advertisements...That’s foreign influence,” he said.

“But what’s not foreign influence is when the ⁠European Union threatens billions of dollars withheld from Hungary because you guys protect your borders... What’s not foreign influence is when the Ukrainians shut down pipelines, causing suffering among the Hungarian people in an effort to influence an election.”

Budapest has been embroiled in a long‑running dispute with ⁠the European Union over issues ranging from judicial independence to the treatment of migrants.

Vance had already lambasted what he said was EU meddling in the Hungarian vote at a news conference on Tuesday.

A European Commission spokesperson said on Wednesday Brussels ⁠would use diplomatic channels “to convey our concerns to our US counterparts” following those comments.

The Ukrainian presidency did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

According to AFP, a Russian strike killed one person and wounded four in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region, regional authorities said on Thursday.

Russia has targeted Ukrainian territory daily since Moscow’s full-scale offensive began in February 2022, with Kyiv regularly carrying out retaliatory attacks.

“One person was killed, four were wounded” in the early-morning strike, Ivan Fedorov, head of the regional military administration, posted on Telegram.

He said the number of casualties was “rising” after the attack, which destroyed homes in the rural town of Balabyne.

Ukraine has invited private companies to get their own air-defence systems in a bid to ease the burden on its military.

In an interview with AFP, a senior Ukrainian military official detailed the plan - involving state authorisation and integration into the air force coordination system - that has already attracted over a dozen companies.

The goal is to give businesses “the possibility, at their own expense and with their own employees, to protect themselves against aerial threats”, Yuriy Myronenko, 48, inspector general at the Ukrainian defence ministry and the main architect of the project, told AFP.