Euronews did not release this video, and the data in it is not true.
A video with the Euronews logo is spreading online, claiming that the ratings of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and the prime ministers of Slovakia and Hungary, Robert Fico and Viktor Orban respectively, increased after their visit to Russia on Victory Day. The act was allegedly appreciated by citizens who «support peace and dialogue with Russia,» as a result of which the leaders’ support rating increased by 10 percent.
However, this news is completely fabricated, and Euronews did not release such a video: it can not be found on the media’s website or social networks. No other credible source has written about such a trend either — on the contrary, the information was spread exclusively by propaganda and Russian-language resources.
There is no data on how exactly the trip to Moscow affected the support of citizens of these countries for their own governments. However, the claim that the ratings of Fico, Orban and Vucic increased is clearly false. Orban decided not to attend the parade in Moscow at all. He simply was not there, and therefore his rating was not affected in any way. At the same time, there are other reasons for the decline in Orban’s rating and political protests in the country. For example, on May 14, the Financial Times wrote that Viktor Orban’s support for an ultranationalist candidate in the elections in Romania caused outrage among the Hungarian diaspora and further strengthened the trust in his competitor, Peter Magyar, who is now rapidly gaining popularity. According to polls, he is now the most popular politician in Hungary.
Robert Fico’s ratings are also not at their best: on May 14, local media reported on a poll that more than a third of Slovaks believe he staged last year’s assassination attempt for political points, and they feel a growing distrust of the government. In addition, Fico’s previous trip to Moscow — in December 2024 — caused outrage not only among citizens but also among his own allies. At that time, four coalition deputies from the social democratic party Glas (Voice) distanced themselves from the trip, blocked some of the coalition’s proposals, and announced a visit to Kyiv. «Fico’s trip to Moscow was a disgrace for Slovakia,» said Michal Šimečka, leader of the Progressive Slovakia party, in an interview with POLITICO. «But this is part of a larger story about a prime minister who seems not… interested in solving the real problems that concern people in Slovakia. Instead, he flies around the world, meeting with dictators.»
Serbia in general has been gripped by massive anti-government protests since November 2024. On May 12, the leader of the Serbian Democratic Party said that Vučić did not plan to call early parliamentary elections despite the protesters’ demands, as support for the politician is falling rapidly and steadily. Thus, Orbán, Fico, and Vučić’s ratings among their own citizens are quite low, not least because of the pro-Russian stances of these politicians.
The so-called Victory Parade in Moscow became another pretext for Russian propaganda to spread disinformation narratives. Read refutations on the same topic in the stories Fake: Billboards in Berlin Advertise the «Immortal Regiment» Campaign and Fake: More People Watched the Broadcast Russian «Victory Parade» than the Opening of the Olympics in Paris.
