BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin travels to Budapest on Tuesday to meet the leader some Hungarians cast as his alter ego — "Little Putin."
It's a striking moniker for Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who rose to international prominence in the 1980s as an anti-Soviet student leader. His transformation into a populist who cozies up to the Kremlin and stifles dissent mirrors a broader eastern European narrative in which rebellion against Moscow has evolved into mixed feelings about the neighboring Russian giant. Leaders in Hungary, Serbia, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic all increasingly play a double game of courting EU riches while also flirting with Russian patronage.
Some 2,000 people marched Monday evening in downtown Budapest to protest Putin's visit, calling on Orban to stop the "Putinization" of Hungary.
