After weeks of failing to divide Europe over his war in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin enjoyed two small diplomatic victories this weekend.
In both Hungary and Serbia, openly pro-Russian parties comfortably won legislative elections, providing a welcome reminder to Putin that despite the firm and largely united response of the international community to the invasion, few of his friends in his West Huh.
The most significant victory came in the form of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his nationalist Fidesz party winning a landslide. Hungary is a member of both the European Union and NATO, which means Putin can claim to be a dude with seats in the top table of two of his most hated institutions.
During his victory speech on Sunday night, Orban targeted not only the European Union but also Ukraine.
"We have a victory that can be seen from the Moon, but it is sure that it can be seen from Brussels," he said, adding that Fidez "will remember this victory to the end of his life because we had to fight against a Huge amount of opponents." Included in that list of opponents were the Brussels bureaucrats, the international media and, apparently, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky.
Zelensky has directly criticized Orban for failing to support Ukraine, as have many of his European counterparts in the past weeks.
Putin congratulated Orban on his victory. But some believe it will amount to much more than a symbolic victory and does little to influence the EU's resolve on Ukraine.
The reality is that Orban was expected to win and the EU has been working around his leadership for years. Despite dragging his feet early, Orban has gone with EU sanctions against Russia and is largely in line with the rest of the Western Alliance. Hungary's main bloc in terms of supporting Ukraine has been Orban's reluctance to flow weapons through his country to support Ukrainian troops.
Hungary is also a major holdout in EU talks about banning energy imports from Russia. Germany said over the weekend that the bloc needed to discuss sanctions on Russian gas after reports of war crimes in Ukraine - a move that Orban has repeatedly rejected.
Hungary's stubbornness has angered its key ally Poland, Europe's other major law criminal, which has used its veto powers several times in recent years to protect Orban from EU punishment. It is not clear whether Poland will do so after the war ends.
Hungary has come a long way from the EU values on the rule of law and human rights, cracking down on cultural institutions and suppressing freedom of the press.
Most attempts to punish Hungary at the EU level have failed, not least because meaningful action would require all EU member states to agree in a vote.
Poland and Hungary have recently reached an agreement of sorts, effectively both using their EU veto to protect each other. However, Poland is arguably the biggest anti-Russian hawk in the EU and it is not yet clear how this will affect the Poland-Hungary axis once the war ends.
And since the start of the war, EU officials have been talking quietly about offering to draw the Poland carrot closer to the rest of the bloc rather than treating Poland and Hungary as the two culprits.
The situation is very different in Serbia in that it is not a member of the European Union or NATO. It is currently undergoing the process of joining the European Union, with talks expected to conclude in the next few years.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has put Serbia's President Aleksandr Vucic in a difficult position. For years, he has tried to balance maintaining strong diplomatic and economic ties with Russia (and a particular fondness for Putin) with the Western embrace that would come with full EU membership.
During the election campaign, Vucic did not deviate from this balance and ran on a platform of peace and stability in the region, Reuters reported.
Serbia is almost entirely dependent on Russian gas, while its military maintains ties with Russia's military. Although Serbia backed two UN resolutions condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine, it refused to impose sanctions against Moscow, Reuters reported.
The Kremlin also supports Belgrade's opposition to Kosovo's independence by blocking its membership in the United Nations.
There is no doubt that the weekend's election results - especially in Hungary - would have made Putin smile and leaders in Brussels held their heads in their hands. For the EU, however, more Orban actually means more. He could provide Putin with some publicity victories and he could put the brakes on plans for a broader EU in the future. But the EU has been working on ways to work around Orban for years and knows that when it comes to pushing, Orban is happy inside the club, making trouble conspiring to leave.