JD Vance slams Zelenskyy comments on Orban ahead of Hungary election

US vice president in Hungary calls Ukrainian leader’s ‘threatening’ remarks ‘completely scandalous’.US Vice President JD Vance has said Ukraine’s prime minister made “scandalous” comments about Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, as he echoed Budapest’s accusations that Kyiv is trying to influence the upcoming elections there.Vance’s remarks on Wednesday came during a visit to Budapest days before the far-right Orban, a Trump ally, faces the toughest challenge of his 16-year rule in an election on April 12.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemslist 1 of 4Vance visits Hungary to shore up Orban’s support before Sunday votelist 2 of 4‘Orban constantly vetoes’: Europe braces for Hungary electionlist 3 of 4Hungary’s Orban continues to block Ukraine loan at EU summitlist 4 of 4EU calls for clarification after Hungary accused of leaking info to Russiaend of listHungary’s strained relations with Ukraine have taken centre stage in the election campaign, with Budapest’s government 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 quickly as it can.Hungary responded by blocking a 90-billion-euro ($105bn) EU loan for Ukraine, prompting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to say he could give the address of whoever was responsible to the Ukrainian army, who could “speak with him in their own language”.‘Completely scandalous’Speaking at a Hungarian university, Vance said Orban had told him about Zelenskyy’s remarks.“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 s … That’s foreign influence,” he said.