Kocsis: Tisza Party has Ukrainian connections that may violate Hungary's sovereignty

Budapest Times

13-05-2025

Máté Kocsis, ruling Fidesz's parliamentary group leader, told public radio on Sunday that the opposition Tisza Party has Ukrainian connections that may violate Hungary's sovereignty.
Referring to a report leaked on Thursday, Kocsis said that Romulusz Ruszin-Szendi, Tisza's defense expert who was formerly Hungary's chief of staff, had said 'totally different things' at NATO meetings than what he had written in his reports back home. Kocsis said the protocols of the general assembly meetings indicated Ruszin-Szendi had represented a 'pro-Ukraine' stance and had ended his addresses with the salute 'Slava Ukraini!'.
Kocsis said that by doing this, Ruszin-Szendi was not representing his mandate and had gone against the official Hungarian position on ending the war and stopping weapons deliveries to Ukraine. He also said that after the release of the report on Ruszin-Szendi, Tisza Party leader Peter Magyar had 'used the entire left-liberal press to attack the Hungarian Armed Forces' by releasing an audio recording which the defense minister himself had published and which can also be found on the government's website.
Not long after Magyar's 'incoherent accusations', Kocsis said, the Ukrainians 'accused, without any evidence' two Transcarpathian Hungarians of espionage aimed at obtaining intelligence about Ukrainian defenses in Transcarpathia.
'Though these are serious accusations, but since there's no evidence for them, it's clearly a part of the propaganda war that's been going on these last few years,' the group leader said.
'There's a pro-Ukraine former lieutenant general … there is a suspicion that he has a link to the Ukrainians, meaning he may have connections with the Ukrainian secret services, which in his case would warrant an investigation of its own,' Kocsis said.
He said the 'obvious conclusion' to this was the suspicion that 'this connection was Romulusz Ruszin-Szendi himself'.
'Our political opponent, the Tisza Party, has Ukrainian connections that may, let's just say, violate the country's sovereignty,' Kocsis said. He noted that Hungarians will have to make an important decision in the coming weeks in the referendum on Ukraine's fast-tracked accession to the European Union.
In response to a question, Kocsis said he did not think the 'Ukraine issue' would bring in more votes for fast-tracking Ukraine's accession,'even though this is what the opposition is hoping for'.
'I don't think that's the goal; I think the goal is to cause confusion,' the group leader said, adding that this was 'a typical secret-service operation that the Ukrainians are using as propaganda'. He said the goal was to — at the very least — create confusion in Hungary around the perception of issues relating to Ukraine.
'Our position, on the other hand, is that Hungarians shouldn't be told what to think from the Ukrainian secret service HQ or from Tisza's office in Brussels, because they themselves are the only ones who can decide on Ukraine's EU accession,' Kocsis said.
He said Ukraine had been restricting the rights of its Hungarian minority community for years. He added that he did not think anything could be done in defense of the two Hungarians arrested in Ukraine, mainly because the evidence and allegations against them were not yet known.
Kocsis said that sometimes these kinds of operations were not made public and did not involve any communication, but if there is, their identity and the evidence against them have to be revealed. 'But this hasn't happened, which also makes the case suspicious regarding the Tisza Party's timing,' he added.