BUDAPEST, Hungary, Feb 25 (Reuters) - Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has never made any secret of his desire for warm ties with Russia and President Vladimir Putin.
But five weeks before the toughest election the 58-year-old has faced in his 12 years in power, that friendship looks likely to cost him votes among young people upset at Putin's war on Hungary's neighbour Ukraine.
"He has been rather two-faced," said Dora Bicskei, 22, who joined an opposition protest against the Russian invasion on Thursday at the Russian embassy in Budapest. "We sympathise with the EU and with Putin at the same time ... it was to be expected that at some point those two things would clash."
"I'd prefer us to side with the European Union."
Only a fifth of voters under 29 back Orban's conservative Fidesz party, which draws most of its support from older and rural voters.
But Gabor Torok, a political analyst, wrote on his Facebook page that the war in Ukraine might alienate even some of those older voters.
He said the common wisdom held that an external crisis generally helped the ruling party.
"But this is not necessarily true of the present situation," he wrote.
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