New Delhi, Feb. 17 -- The real threat facing Hungary is not Russia but the European Union, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said in a speech to supporters on Saturday, as his nationalist party ramps up an anti-EU campaign ahead of national elections.

With only eight weeks until the April 12 vote, Orban and his Fidesz party are facing their most serious challenge since the right-wing populist leader retook power in 2010.

Most independent polls show Fidesz trailing the center-right Tisza party and its leader, Peter Magyar, even as Orban has campaigned on the unsubstantiated premise that the EU would send Hungarians to their deaths in neighboring Ukraine if his party loses.

In his speech on Saturday, Orban compared the EU to the repressive Sov...