Latest news with #ViktorOrban
Russia Today
10 hours ago
- Business
- Russia Today
‘Brussels hijacked our future'
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has unveiled a proposal to increase the power of EU members and limit the authority of its bureaucracy. Calling it a 'patriotic plan' for the bloc, he said in a series of weekend social media posts that it will revive the 'European dream.' The EU elites in Brussels have exploited every crisis to amass more power, Orban claimed in a post on X. This course has so far only translated into less sovereignty for member states and 'failed policies,' according to the prime minister. 'Brussels hijacked our future' by disrupting public safety through migration and eroding prosperity with 'green dogmas,' he stated in another post. 'Europe can't afford this any longer, it's time to take back control,' he PM's plan is based on what he calls four pillars: a path toward peace on the continent and defusing tensions with Russia, removing Brussels' 'centralized control' over finances, 'bringing back free speech' and strengthening Europe's Christian identity, and tightening control over immigration. 'We want peace, we don't need a new Eastern front,' Orban said, commenting on his plan and stating that the bloc should not accept Ukraine as a member. 'We don't want our money poured into someone else's war,' he added. A military buildup and defense increase actively promoted by some EU nations could easily lock the bloc in an 'arms race' with Russia, Orban warned. Such a development would 'devour… taxpayers' money,' he said. Instead of pouring more resources into the military, the bloc needs to contribute to the peace process between Moscow and Kiev, the prime minister maintained, praising US President Donald Trump's efforts in this regard. The EU needs to start 'arms limitation talks with the Russians as soon as possible. Otherwise, all our money will be swallowed by the arms industry instead of being spent on peaceful… goals,' Orban argued. European nations once united to create the 'safest and the most advanced continent' in the world but this dream was 'stolen,' the prime minister charged, calling on EU nations not to allow Brussels to use the Ukraine conflict 'as an excuse to take more of our money.'
Time of India
13 hours ago
- Politics
- Time of India
Hungarians silently protest bill 'muzzling' NGOs, media
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban (AP) BUDAPEST: Thousands marched in silence, many with their mouths taped shut, in central Budapest Sunday to protest a planned law that would allow the government to sanction "foreign-funded" NGOs and media. Critics consider the bill "on transparency in public life" as the latest attempt by nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban to muzzle dissenting voices since returning to power in 2010. The legislation would empower the government to blacklist organisations that "threaten the sovereignty of Hungary by using foreign funding to influence public life". The government argues these measures are necessary to defend against "foreign interference". "I believe it is important to have an independent press, and not to judge a publication based on where it gets its money from," one of the protesters, 49-year-old Zsolt Solyom, a retired soldier, told AFP. "What I see is that the government wants to silence any media outlet that does not speak or write according to its liking," he added. An AFP photographer estimated that a few thousand people marched through Liberty Bridge in central Budapest in complete silence. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Trading CFD dengan Teknologi dan Kecepatan Lebih Baik IC Markets Mendaftar Undo "Donation today, evidence of crime tomorrow?" read one of the banners. The crowd later erupted in boos and chants denouncing the ruling party as an organiser read the names of all 115 lawmakers co-sponsoring the bill. According to the draft law blacklisted organisation, would need permission to receive foreign funding. They would also be barred from receiving donations through Hungary's annual one-percent income tax contribution scheme, an important source of revenue for non-profits. The proposed legislation has been condemned by the opposition, which has accused the government of copying Russia's authoritarian evolution. Last week, lead representatives of over 80 media outlets from 22 countries -- including Britain's The Guardian and France's Liberation -- urged their governments and the European Union to do everything in their power to prevent its enactment. The European Commission has called on Hungary to withdraw the draft, vowing to take the "necessary action" if it is adopted. Lawmakers are scheduled to vote on the legislation in mid-June. It is expected to pass, as Orban's tightly disciplined governing coalition has a supermajority in parliament.
The Guardian
a day ago
- Business
- The Guardian
He is the strongman who inspired Trump – but is Viktor Orbán losing his grip on power?
On a sunny April afternoon in Budapest, a handful of reporters crowded around the back entrance of the Dorothea, a luxury hotel tucked between a Madame Tussauds waxworks museum and a discount clothing store in the city's walking district. Most had spent hours outside the hotel, hoping to confirm reports that Donald Trump Jr was inside. News of his visit had leaked two days earlier, but much of his agenda remained shrouded in secrecy, save for a meeting with the Hungarian foreign minister. Reports had also circulated of a closed-door speech the US president's eldest child and Trump Organization executive was slated to give on bridging governments to the private sector at the five-star hotel reportedly owned by the son-in-law of Hungary's prime minister, Viktor Orbán. Few other details emerged from the visit. But it was a hint of the outsized role that this small central European country, home to 9.6 million people, is playing in the US's political conversation. Trump and those around him have long talked up Orbán's Hungary, depicting it, in the words of one Hungarian journalist, as a sort of 'Christian conservative Disneyland'. The veneration of its alliance of populism and Christianity has persisted, even as the country plunges in press freedom rankings, faces accusations of no longer being a full democracy, and becomes the most corrupt country in the EU. As Kevin Roberts, the head of the Heritage Foundation thinktank that produced Project 2025, a far-right blueprint for Trump's second term, once put it: 'Modern Hungary is not just a model for conservative statecraft, but the model.' Orbán, the prime minister who once described Hungary as a 'petri dish for illiberalism', has been lauded by Trump's former adviser Steve Bannon as 'Trump before Trump'. The US vice-president, JD Vance, once characterised Orbán's purge of gender studies in academia as a model to be followed. The US president last year called him a 'very great leader, a very strong man'. He added: 'Some people don't like him because he's too strong. It's nice to have a strong man running your country.' Since Trump began his second term in January, the adoration has seemingly turned to emulation at a frenzied pace. Trump, like Orbán before him, has seized on state powers to pursue rivals, embraced dark rhetoric to demonise political opponents and purge 'wokeness' from institutions, in what analysts described as the Orbánisation of America. For rights groups, journalists and activists in Hungary who have long pushed back against the steady erosion of rights by arguably the modern world's most successful populist leader, the parallels are eerie. Over the past 15 years they have challenged a playbook that has now gone global, turning them into a singular source on how Americans – and others around the world – can fight back in the face of democratic backsliding. 'Sometimes it might seem kind of tempting to say: 'OK, we're just going to make this compromise, and it might go away,'' said András Kádár of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, a Budapest-based NGO. 'But the Hungarian example shows that they always go one step further; we always hit new rock bottoms. It's very important to fight every inch and bit of this process.' Much of what Orbán is doing follows in the footsteps of Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdoğan or Russia's Vladimir Putin, he said. But one crucial difference explained why Hungary had captured imaginations in the US, Kádár said. 'It's unprecedented in the sense that you have a full-fledged democracy … in the heart of the European Union, which very consciously chose to go this way.' In the course of Orbán's 15-year rule, there is little his government hasn't tinkered with. After targeting judges and recasting electoral policy to make it harder to oust his party, universities were purged of gender studies courses and public institutions were put under the control of Orbán loyalists. His critics have accused him of using state tenders to line the pockets of loyalists and of wielding state subsidies to reward pro-government media outlets and starve critical media. Some of the weakened media outlets were later snapped up by entrepreneurs loyal to Orbán and transformed into government mouthpieces, with his Fidesz party and its loyalists now estimated to control 80% of the country's media. Throughout it all – in an echo of a strategy that would later be replicated in the US – there was one constant. 'This whole process has been going on behind this smoke screen of hate propaganda, with different targets,' said Kádár, pointing to Orbán's targeting of Brussels and the EU as well as migrants. 'Then they say we need all these powers, these unchecked and uncontrolled powers to protect the people from those enemies inside and outside.' When it comes to the US, many in Budapest highlighted the differences in how things were playing out. 'Compared to what's happening in the United States, here it was rather slow,' said Péter Krekó, the director of the Political Capital Institute thinktank. 'So here it's more like the frog boiling in the water model, while in the United States, I think it's a coup, practically.' Hungary's transformation, however gradual, has been striking. At the start of the 21st century, the country was a regional leader when it came to the quality of democratic institutions and their independence. It is now the region's worst performer democratically, after what Krekó described as the 'Hungarian propaganda machine' drilled the government's line into people. 'It's all over the country, on every billboard, radio spots, on TV. It's an Orwellian campaign, but on many topics it can shape public opinion very efficiently.' What had emerged was a country where the notion of who belongs had been recast, said Ádám András Kanicsár, a journalist and LGBTQ+ activist. 'The government has an idea of who is a proper Hungarian and who is not,' he said. 'And in the last 15 years, this picture has been narrowed down more and more. Right now, you are a proper Hungarian if you have two children, you are white and Christian and have a job, and are living in a happy marriage. And this is the only way to be a good Hungarian.' This year Orbán and his backers banned all public LGBTQ+ events. Looking back, Kanicsár said the community had long been too passive in asserting their rights. Although the government's ban led many in the community to speak up, they were now on the defensive, explaining why their hard-won rights needed to be protected, rather than pushing for advances such as same-sex marriage. 'They have the narrative now,' he said, referring to the government. 'We can't bring new topics to the table.' The government's most recent amendment also enshrined the recognition of only two sexes in Hungary's constitution, wiping out the identities of people such as Lilla Hübsch. 'Basically my existence right now is unconstitutional, which is kind of crazy,' said the trans activist as she joined Kanicsár at a bustling coffee shop in Pest, the part of the capital that flanks the eastern bank of the Danube. For Kanicsár, it was a reminder of how many in Hungary – and around the world – had long assumed progress was inevitable. 'It's a big mistake. We think that history is a narrow line upwards, that we are always getting better and better, more liberal, more democratic,' he said. 'But we can always lose it. And if you have it and you lose it, it can be really hurtful.' The banning of Budapest Pride, just as it was gearing up to celebrate its 30th anniversary, was a poignant example. 'If you have these rights, don't take them for granted. Cherish them, talk about them and protest for them, because there are always new people who have to hear your message.' When the Guardian visited Budapest last month, sitting down with people in offices, coffee shops, and dining rooms, a note of hope threaded through many interviews. With elections slated for spring 2026, Orbán is facing an unprecedented challenge from a former member of the Fidesz party's elite, Péter Magyar. Several recent polls suggest that, if the trend continues, Orbán could lose his grip on power. 'For the first time in 15 years, there is a serious contender,' said Péter Erdélyi, the founder of the Budapest-based Center for Sustainable Media. With hope, however, comes risk: now was, he said, a dangerous moment for anyone perceived to be standing in Orbán's way. This year the prime minister said he would 'eliminate the entire shadow army' of foreign-funded 'politicians, judges, journalists, pseudo-NGOs and political activists', suggesting he could go further than previously used tactics such as smear campaigns, relentless audits and physical intimidation by Fidesz supporters. Orbán's party seemingly made good on the threat when it put forward legislation that would give authorities broad powers to, in the words of one rights organisation, 'strangle and starve' NGOs and independent media it sees as a threat to national sovereignty. The draft law, said Transparency International, marked a 'dark turning point' for Hungary. 'It is designed to crush dissent, silence civil society, and dismantle the pillars of democracy,' the organisation said. The Hungarian Helsinki Committee issued a similar warning. 'If this bill passes, it will not simply marginalise Hungary's independent voices – it will extinguish them,' said thhe co-chair Márta Pardavi. The situation in Hungary had been made more complicated by Trump's ascension to the White House, said Erdélyi. 'The US government, almost regardless of who occupied the White House, was a moderating force on authoritarians pretty much everywhere but certainly in central Europe,' he said. 'And the new White House, of course, is not only not interested in being that, but it is also turning away from the transatlantic relationship or multilateralism in general.' Magyar's swift rise has shaken Hungarian politics, according to Miklós Ligeti of Transparency International Hungary, who credited the politician and his movement, Tisza, for catapulting corruption to the top of Hungarians' concerns. Through his savvy use of social media and rallies that have drawn thousands, Magyar has repeatedly linked underperforming public services such as healthcare and schools to the country's soaring levels of corruption. 'Now people start to understand that the serious underfunding of these two services is somehow linked to the fact that the government is spending taxpayers' money on the enrichment of certain business entrepreneurs who have good ties with the government,' said Ligeti. While Orbán and his party had long been able to deflect criticism by pointing to the country's strong economy, this was no longer the case, sparking questions as to how they keep their grasp on power, said Márton Gulyás, a left-leaning political commentator who helms Partizán, the country's most-watched political YouTube channel. 'I think right now they are in a very dangerous phase, mostly because of the tremendous problems in the economy,' he said. 'They're losing money heavily on debt, inflation is still high, food prices are still high and wages have stagnated.' He said the unprecedented political challenge has been heightened by new models of journalism that had learned to evade Orbán's heavy hand, from Gulyás's YouTube channel, which employs 70 people, and independent outlets such as 444, Telex, and Among them was András Pethő, who left his newsroom a decade ago after it became evident the publisher was under growing pressure to toe the government line. When he cofounded the investigative media outlet Direkt36, he knew the model had to be different. 'We set up this organisation in a way that would be more resilient against these kinds of pressures,' said Pethő as he drove to Szombathely, a small city in the west of Hungary where Direkt36 was screening a documentary on the lavish business dealings linked to Orbán's family since he took power. The event was an example of how journalists are forging direct, grassroots connections with audiences across Hungary. 'We don't have investors, we don't have a corporate owner, because we saw that that's how pressure is exerted,' Pethő said. In recent years there have been many warnings about the Hungarian government's erosion of democracy. In 2018, it was accused of trying to 'stop democracy' after it passed a law criminalising lawyers and activists who help asylum seekers. Four years later, members of the European parliament backed a report outlining why Hungary could no longer be considered a full democracy. Most recently, a delegation of EU lawmakers called on Hungary to return to 'real democracy' after a visit to the country. Although Hungary may serve as a model of sorts for the US, many in Budapest questioned whether the same impact was possible across the Atlantic. 'I think the intention is similar,' said Erdélyi of the Center for Sustainable Media. But Hungary's economy relies heavily on outside forces; it is not a global superpower. 'It's easy to centralise here because there's not that much stuff to centralise.' The sentiment was echoed by Zoltán Ádám, a senior research fellow at the Centre for Social Sciences. 'Once you build a two-thirds majority in parliament, you are basically ruling the world in this country,' he said. 'So you can introduce a monarchy or make Viktor Orbán's uncle the champion of whatever sports competition – I'm joking, but it's just half a joke.' This majority allows Orbán and his backers to rewrite the country's laws at will to serve their own political purposes. 'This is a fully controlled country to a large extent,' said Ádám. 'This is not totalitarian in the 20th-century sense, this is not a Bolshevik or a fascist system, but all the major institutional actors in the country are actually controlled by the government.' In the US, in contrast, the federal nature provided a built-in system of checks and balances that should protect the country against this sort of threat, said Ádám. 'Trump doesn't control the governor of Massachusetts or the state house of California.' Others questioned how Hungary had come to be seen as a model for the US. 'It's funny because this is a narrative that was built up by Viktor Orbán's circles,' said a former Fidesz politician who left the party decades ago after becoming disillusioned with Orbán's leadership. 'It's a story that was sold to the Americans,' said the former politician, who asked not to be named, referring to reports that have alleged that the Hungarian government spent millions of euros on intermediaries tasked with selling the US a specific image of Orbán and Hungary. 'They sold it in a very smart way because they used American terms that don't have much sense in Hungary,' she said. 'So like 'gender war', 'woke' – there's no 'woke' issue in Hungary. Hungary is much more behind in terms of progressivism than the United States … Hungary's not even a multicultural country; it's very homogenous in every sense.' For 15 years she has watched Orbán tighten his grip on power. The longer it went on, the greater Orbán's motivation would be to cling to power at any cost, she warned. 'The system only works for them if they are in power, because they create their own rules. They know that all the rules will change if they lose power.' Her comments came days before it emerged that Hungarian officials had asked the European parliament, for the third time, to lift Magyar's immunity as an MEP. Magyar described it as an attempt by Orbán and his party to levy false charges against him and block him from running in next year's elections. The Hungarian government was approached for comment for this article, but a representative cited time constraints and declined to meet. The possibility of speaking with someone from a government-linked institute was then floated, before the Guardian was told that they would have no time to speak either in person or over the phone. Just how much Orbán and his party's views line up with those of his counterparts in the US remains a matter of debate. Orbán had long cultivated an image of himself as a stalwart of conservative values, using it as a cover to ease his access to the US administration, said the investigative journalist Szabolcs Panyi. 'Orbán just uses this as a smokescreen,' he said. 'I think he just invented these pro-family, anti-migration policies; it's something that he can advertise as a common denominator among all of the conservative groups in the world.' 'But in reality, what makes Orbán really powerful and interesting … is everything that is going against the US Republican values and policies,' he added, pointing to Hungary's full state control of certain industries and Orbán's heavy reliance on Chinese industry and technology and Russian fossil fuels. In recent weeks, analysts have warned that Orbán's ties to Trump could begin to work against him if the US president's tariffs hurt the country's economy. If Orbán's hold on power were to be weakened by Trump, it would be a tremendous irony, said Panyi. 'It could be Orbán's tragedy. That by the time that all the stars align when it comes to foreign policy, by the time he reaches that level where he can legitimately claim that his comrades are on the rise and there's a far-right wave and he's been spearheading it, at least ideologically, that by that time his domestic support is crumbling.'
BBC News
2 days ago
- Business
- BBC News
Europe's US-backed conservatives hope this is their moment to go mainstream
It's been a big week in Europe for CPAC, the US Conservative Political Action Conference, with large gatherings in Poland and timing is crucial, ahead of Poland's presidential election run-off on Sunday, between a CPAC-backed nationalist, Karol Nawrocki, and the liberal Mayor of Warsaw Rafal Trzaskowski, which CPAC speakers describe as a "battle for Western civilisation".Traditionally a meeting place for conservative activists in America, CPAC's visibility has soared with Donald Trump back in the White House and his Maga (Make America Great Again) movement in undisputed control of the Republican party."This is not a gathering of the defeated, but of those who have endured," Hungary's nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban told the opening session on Thursday in Budapest. Describing President Trump as a "truth serum", Orban emphasised his vision of a new Europe, in what he calls "the Age of Patriots", based on the nation, the traditional family, and his version of Christianity. To tumultuous applause, he and other speakers derided the European Union's Green Deal, and complained of mass immigration and "gender and woke madness".In a congress hall replete with disco music, flashing lights, video clips, and celebrity show hosts, older politicians sometimes seemed dazzled by all the razzamatazz."Europeans do not feel safe in their own towns, homes, and countries," Orban said. "They are strangers in their own homes. This is not integration, it is population replacement."It was a theme echoed by his guests Alice Weidel of Germany's far-right AfD and Geert Wilders of the Netherlands' Freedom was a movement looking to reshape the whole European project with its own brand of conservativism, jettisoning the old EU speakers included Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico and the leader of the Austrian Freedom party Herbert British Prime Minister Liz Truss was here too, with Australian ex-Prime Minister Tony Abbott and former Polish and Czech Prime Ministers Mateusz Morawiecki and Andrej Babis, alongside an array of influential Republicans and South American was even a representative from Rajendra Modi's BJP in India, Ram Madhav. In Warsaw on Tuesday, and then in Budapest too, speakers laid out the case for what one of them called "an international nationalist movement, a global platform for anti-globalist forces"."Unlike CPAC in the US, CPAC Hungary seems to have more intellectual substance. And it also serves as an opportunity - rare in Europe - for nationalist and populist politicians and activists to get together and network," Rod Dreher, a Budapest-based editor of the American Conservative told the BBC."Viktor Orban's promise to make Budapest the intellectual capital of dissident European conservatism has come true."Orban relishes that "dissident" theme, while more mainstream European conservatives like Germany's new chancellor, Friedrich Merz, keep their been a sense in Hungary and Poland this week that the Trump administration is here to pay back the support that Donald Trump received from nationalist leaders in Europe in his victory last November."If you elect a leader who will work with President Trump, the Polish people will have a strong ally," Kristi Noem, Trump's head of Homeland Security told the Warsaw CPAC conference. "You will continue to have a US military presence here… and you will have equipment that is American made, high quality." She did not say what would happen if Karol Nawrocki did not win on Sunday. While the Maga movement in Europe - translated by Viktor Orban into Mega (Make Europe Great Again) - sounds self-confident, it has also endured setbacks, most recently with the liberal mayor of Bucharest, Nicusor Dan, winning Romania's presidential Albania, Sali Berisha, the Maga-backed leader of the Democratic Party, lost this month's parliamentary election to the Socialist Edi Rama. Former Trump campaign strategist Chris LaCivita helped Berisha's in Austria Herbert Kickl's hopes of becoming chancellor were dashed by the formation of a new left-right coalition, which chose Christian Stocker of the Austrian People's Party throne is even wobbling beneath Viktor Orban, the host of the conference in his message, so fresh in the ears of his US admirers, have gone stale for Hungarians? "If Nawrocki does not win in Poland, Hungary will be next and Viktor Orban will lose power," George Simion, the Romanian nationalist defeated by Nicusor Dan warned in Warsaw. Hungary's next parliamentary elections are due in April next are also cracks in the facade of and Russia remain a source of division. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was conspicuous by her there was bad news this week for Viktor Orban - the Hungarian fertility rate fell to 1.28 in April, almost as low as when he came to power in 2010, despite 15 years of tax and home-building incentives to encourage couples to have more as the chairs were packed away in the congress hall in Budapest on Friday evening, there was a mood of elation, eyes trained on the run-off in Poland.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
The Hungary-Ukraine spy scandal and Russia's possible role, explained
Ukraine's rocky relationship with Hungary reached new lows this month with the uncovering of an alleged spy ring run from Budapest. Arrests, tit-for-tat expulsions, and a stream of accusations from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban soon followed in a diplomatic scandal with potentially massive ramifications for both countries. "This is probably the most-discussed Ukraine-related news (in Hungary) since the beginning of the full-scale invasion," Andras Racz, a senior fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) Center for Security and Defense, told the Kyiv Independent. "It's truly unprecedented," he added. Adding to the intrigue are the questions looming over the motives of the alleged spies, who were allegedly tasked with gathering sensitive military information that would be highly valuable to one country in particular — Russia. Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) on May 9 said it had uncovered a Hungarian espionage network in western Ukraine in what was the first case of its kind. SBU counterintelligence detained two alleged agents and identified their supervisor as a Hungarian military intelligence officer. According to the SBU, one of those detained is a 40-year-old former Ukrainian military officer who was recruited by Hungarian intelligence in 2021 and placed in standby mode. Kyiv has long accused Budapest of undermining Ukraine's sovereignty through political interference and pursuing an active policy of issuing Hungarian passports to ethnic Hungarians in the region. They claim he was "activated" in September 2024 when he began to conduct reconnaissance on the deployment of Ukrainian Armed Forces and the coordinates of S-300 air defense systems in the region. The spies' tasks also included identifying official vehicles belonging to Ukraine's army, and gathering data on the presence of aircraft and helicopters in Zakarpattia Oblast. They were also tasked with gauging local attitudes to various scenarios including the deployment of a Hungarian "peacekeeping contingent." At the center of the spy scandal is Ukraine's Zakarpattia Oblast, a region that has long been home to a large ethnic Hungarian minority that numbered 70,000-80,000 in 2024. Relations between Ukraine and Hungary have been historically strained because of issues relating to Zakarpattia Oblast — Kyiv has long accused Budapest of undermining Ukraine's sovereignty through political interference and pursuing an active policy of issuing Hungarian passports to ethnic Hungarians in the region. In turn, Budapest accuses Kyiv of discriminating against the Hungarian ethnic minority there, especially over Ukraine's language laws that require at least 70% of education above fifth grade to be conducted in Ukrainian. While Budapest has called this measure discriminatory toward the Hungarian minority, Kyiv denies it is discriminatory, saying it only aims to ensure that every Ukrainian citizen has sufficient knowledge of the country's official language. These issues have taken on extra significance since the start of Ukraine's accession talks which formally launched in June 2024. Hungary — which as an existing member of the EU holds veto power over accession decisions — has held up the process, citing discrimination against its Hungarian minority as a key obstacle. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has accused Ukraine of collaborating with his political opposition, Tisza party leader Peter Magyar, to orchestrate a campaign to discredit him ahead of a planned referendum on Kyiv's EU membership. The day before the SBU announcement, Magyar released an audio recording of a 2023 conversation in which Defense Minister Kristof Szalay-Bobrovniczky talks of preparing the country's military for war — the opposite of what he and Orban had been saying in public, Magyar said. "Thus, the Hungarian opposition party took an active part in the special operation of the Ukrainian secret service," Orban said on May 13, adding: "Such a thing has never happened in our memory." Budapest also on May 9 expelled what it claimed were two "spies" working under diplomatic cover at Ukraine's embassy in Budapest, a move met with reciprocal expulsions by Kyiv. Another two Ukrainian "spies" were allegedly uncovered on May 20. After the scandal, Hungarian Deputy Foreign Minister Levente Magyar refused to come to Ukraine on May 12 for planned talks about the Hungarian national minority, Ukraine's Justice Ministry said on May 11. According to Racz, just the fact that Ukraine's SBU went public with the information is in itself significant. "Usually, espionage-related affairs are handled in a silent, non-public way. Even if there are expulsions, usually both sides are interested in minimizing tensions and the damage inflicted," Racz said. "Why would Budapest need the location and exact type of the air defense systems so much that they specifically instructed one of the agents to go there and take pictures of the installations? [...] I find no other plausible answer than Russia." And the timing of the announcement may also have been deliberate — according to Viktor Yahun, former deputy head of the SBU, the release of the information on May 9, Russia's Victory Day, was to "show once again how close the contacts and intentions of Hungary and Russia are." Complicating matters further is the fact that Orban is widely seen as the EU's most pro-Russian leader, and has repeatedly opposed military aid for Ukraine, arguing that Western support prolongs the war. He has maintained close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin, holding official meetings despite the full-scale invasion and amplified Kremlin narratives in Europe. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has visited Russia 13 times in the past three years, far more than any other EU diplomat, and even more than some of Russia's closest allies. Read also: Hungarian FM visits Moscow, eyes further economic cooperation with Russia Largely because of this, Hungary has shifted into a "gray zone" regarding intelligence sharing with EU countries, Vitalii Diachuk, the Institute for Central European Strategy (ICES) analyst, told the Kyiv Independent. The intelligence exchange process became more formalized, and Hungary ceased receiving analytical intelligence from NATO and EU countries, and stopped providing any of its own intelligence related to Russia, he added. Diachuk said there was nothing irregular about a country collecting general intelligence on its neighbors "especially when there is a war going on," but said a line would be crossed if that information "poses a threat to Ukraine's national security." The SBU's claim that Hungarian spies were collecting information about Ukraine's air defenses would most certainly cross this line, Racz said "If the SBU's claims are well-grounded… then it is very hard to imagine why this information would be relevant for Hungary," he added. "Why would Budapest need the location and exact type of the air defense systems so much that they specifically instructed one of the agents to go there and take pictures of the installations?" Given the highly unlikely scenario that Hungary is planning to attack Ukraine and thus needs to know where its air defenses are located, the remaining possible explanations are limited. "At present, unfortunately, I find no other plausible answer than Russia," Racz said. Yahun told the Kyiv Independent that it's within the realm of possibility that Orban was acting under the orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin. "Some of my colleagues have said that it is possible that during Orban's meeting with Putin (in July 2024), he could have persuaded Orban to exchange some intelligence information that is sensitive to Hungary and Russia," Yahun said. Yahun also said it's unlikely that Orban didn't know about the spying operation given his closeness to Major General Norbert Tajti, the head of Hungary's Military National Security Service (KNBSZ). Before his appointment, he served in Hungary's Joint Forces Command and as Orban's aide in the Prime Minister's Office. "(Tajti) had been a personal assistant to Orban for three years. This means that this person is completely devoted to Orban, and any actions on his part could not have been operated independently," Yahun said. Racz also said that Orban's explanation — that the entire thing was an orchestrated campaign between Ukraine and his political opposition — is unlikely as Orban would not have missed the opportunity to present solid evidence and "frame Peter Magyar's Tisza party as a Ukrainian agent." The Kyiv Independent contacted the SBU to ask how long the alleged Hungarian spying operation had been ongoing, and if it was broader than just the two individuals already detained. "All information about the investigation that is currently permitted to be made public has already been posted on the official resources of the (SBU)," it said in a written statement. Read also: Ukraine attacks elite Russian unit base nearly 7,000km away in Vladivostok, source claims We've been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
