Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban pledged on Saturday to crack down on politicians and journalists who receive foreign funding and again ruled out EU membership for Ukraine, stepping up his campaign for elections due in a year.

Orbán, a Trump ally, has applauded the U.S. administration’s actions to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development, claiming, with no evidence, that it was used to fund liberal causes in Hungary aimed at toppling his government.

"There is always an empire that is trying to take away the freedom of the Hungarians, and right now it is the one in Brussels," Viktor Orban said in a speech on Saturday. View on euronews

Orbán, in power since 2010, has used the March 15 celebration in recent years as a podium from which to launch increasingly hostile harangues against the EU, to which Hungary has

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has promised to rid his country of those he believes are working for the interests of foreign nations. He stated that his right-wing government would dismantle a global "shadow army" serving the European Union and the "liberal American empire,