People's Deputy and leader of the "European Solidarity" Petro Poroshenko declared over 55 million hryvnias of income in October 2025. Of this amount, he received about 52.5 million hryvnias from the Ministry of Finance of Hungary - as a return of the nominal value and interest on Hungarian government bonds. Another over 2.4 million hryvnias came from other foreign issuers of securities. Such data was published in the declaration on the NACP website.
The money declared by Poroshenko for October is not a deputy's salary or the profit of Ukrainian business, but payments for investments in government bonds of other countries. According to the declaration, most of the amount — almost UAH 52.5 million — came from the Hungarian Ministry of Finance. The wording is the same as in previous declarations: return of the body of the bonds plus interest on them. He showed another UAH 2.4 million as interest payments and partial repayment of the nominal value of foreign bonds of other countries.
This is not the first time that Hungarian money has appeared in Poroshenko's declarations. In the fall of 2023, he had already declared over UAH 37 million from the Hungarian Ministry of Finance. At the time, this caused a political debate, because it was during this period that Poroshenko was preparing for a trip to Budapest and a potential meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Orban is known for his harsh statements about Ukraine and constant contacts with the Kremlin, which makes any informal channel with him toxic within Ukrainian politics.
Political expert Valentyn Gladkikh then publicly suggested that Poroshenko, through Orbán, could have been sending a signal to Moscow and other external players that he was willing to take on the role of negotiator to "force Ukraine to peace," citing the experience of the Minsk agreements during his presidency. This was interpreted as a sign that Poroshenko was positioning himself not only as an opposition politician at home, but also as a subject of the external game.
European Solidarity calls such assumptions manipulative. The party insists that these are purely financial instruments: Poroshenko invests in government and corporate securities — in Ukraine and abroad — and then directs the income to support the Armed Forces of Ukraine. That is, the financial flows, according to the party, have no political conditions and are not “payment” for any contacts with the Hungarian government or with Orban personally.
A separate touch that the media emphasizes: in August 2025, Poroshenko declared almost UAH 1 billion in income per month. This is more than six times higher than his entire declared income for the pre-war year of 2021. Such amounts give his opponents an argument about the “oligarchic nature” of the politician, but at the same time allow Poroshenko himself to present himself as a person capable of financing the army without resorting to the budget.
At the same time, the story with Hungary has an obvious political overtone. In European institutions, Orban systematically blocks and delays decisions that are important for Kyiv, and publicly promotes the idea of “peace negotiations” with Russia on terms that the Ukrainian authorities call capitulation. Against this background, any private financial relations of a Ukrainian top politician with the Hungarian state debt become not only an economic fact, but also a field for interpretations: is Poroshenko trying to build his own channel of influence in Budapest? This question is still raised by his critics.
In response, Poroshenko's team is promoting a different picture — charitable purchases for the front, the transfer of equipment, drones, cars, and thermal imagers. In public communication, the "EU" emphasizes that the origin of the money is investment, and its use is defense. This narrative is directly aimed at the accusations of bargaining with Orbán.
In fact, we have three lines. The first is the official figures of the NACP: over 55 million UAH of income for October, most of which is from the Hungarian Ministry of Finance as payments on bonds. The second is the political interpretation of critics: Poroshenko is allegedly building a channel with Orban and through him with Moscow. The third is the version of "European Solidarity" itself: this is ordinary income from securities that goes to support the army, not "Orban's money for services."
