While Viktor Orban was in power, no other EU member state was as pro-Russia as Hungary. Indeed, the prime minister’s apparent eagerness to be of service to the Russian president earned him the nickname “Putin’s pinscher” or “Kremlin agent.”
For years, Hungary was seen as a security risk both in the EU and NATO. Russian spies were able to operate in the country largely unhindered for a long time.
In February, it came to light that Peter Szijjarto, Orban’s foreign minister from 2014 to 2026,ย had passed on confidential information from EU meetings to his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov.
All this came to an end in May, when the government headed by Peter Magyar took office.
An unambiguous signal to Russia
In a clear departure from the government line under Orban, Hungary’s new prime minister has already heavily criticized Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine several times.
The government also recently declared Russia a threat to Hungary’s national security.
This week, it took its biggest step yet against the Kremlin, expelling 10 Russian diplomats for engaging in activities “that are unacceptable for diplomats under the Vienna Convention,” as announced by Hungarian Foreign Minister Anita Orban (no relation to the former prime minister).
Although Orban did not provide any more details, the phrase is generally understood to mean that the diplomats in questionย were spies.
Orban said the decision “protects Hungary’s security and sovereignty.” She added: “It does not imply breaking off diplomatic relations with Russia. Hungary intends to continue the necessary dialogue, based on mutual respect and adherence to the rules.”
Restoring old alliances
The minister’s brief announcement immediately generated a huge number of headlines and comments โ hardly surprising given that this was not only evidence of a 180-degree turn on the government’s policy toward Russia but also one of the toughest diplomatic sanctions targeting Moscow since the collapse of communism in 1989/1990.
Speaking to Hungarian news website Index, secret service expert Peter Tarjani said this was “not a diplomatic conflict, but a serious secret service matter” and that with this decision, Hungary was simultaneously returning “to the mainstream of its allies’ security policy.”
Political scientist and leading Hungarian Russia expert Andras Racz told the Hungarian national news agency MTI that Hungary was the only EU and NATO member not to have made such an expulsion in recent years.
Racz said such a step “should really have been taken four and ahalf years ago.” He added: “Hungary is now settling its old debt with its allies.”
Reliance on Russian gas?
Under Viktor Orban, Hungary was the only EU country never to unreservedly condemn Russia’s all-out war against Ukraine.
Indeed, during the final two years of his rule, Orban even blamed Ukraine and the West for Russia’s aggression.
But long before that โ even after he came to power back in 2010 โ Viktor Orban took a markedly pro-Russia line, which he justified, among other things, with the claim that Hungary was more dependent on Russian energy supplies than almost any other country in the region.
His government’s repeated assertion that Russian gas was cheaper has long been disproved. What’s more, the expansion of the Paks nuclear power plant with Russian support will cost Hungary dearly for decades to come.
In the light of all this, Orban’s close ties to Russia remain a mystery.
Absurd situations
For Hungary, this closeness to Russia often led to absurd situations in which the country’s national security was put at risk. At the same time, Orban repeatedly told his critics that it was they who were a threat to Hungary’s sovereignty.
For example, Russian secret service agents for years took part in military-style training exercises in the far-right scene right up until 2016.
Starting in 2012, Russian secret service operatives for years stole huge amounts of data from the Hungarian Foreign Ministry and other agencies without the government ever publicly condemning it.
In 2019, Russia got permission to move the headquarters of the International Investment Bank (IIB) to Budapest. The IIB was known as the “spy bank” because its leadership was made up of individuals linked to or associated with Russia’s FSB intelligence service. It was only after the United States imposed sanctions on the bank in 2023 that it left Hungary again.
Investigative journalist Szabolcs Panyi has warned multiple times in recent years that Hungary had become a “logistical center and deployment zone for Russian secret services,” thereby putting the whole region at risk.
Rejection of Orban’s pro-Russia course
Orban’s strictly pro-Russia course was laterally rejected by many Hungarians.
The decidedly pro-EU orientation of Peter Magyar and his Tisza party had a considerable role to play in the party’s election victory earlier this year. The EU flag was often seen and spontaneous cries of “Russians, go home” were often heard at election rallies last spring.
Unlike Viktor Orban, Magyar and leadingย Tisza politiciansย are convinced that Hungary’s place is exclusively in the European Union and that the country should only maintain pragmatic low-level relations with Russia.
Nevertheless, many observers and experts are surprised at how radically the Magyar government has turned away from Russia.
Andras Telkes, the former deputy head of Hungary’s foreign intelligence service (IH), wrote in the newspaper Nepszava that the expulsion of diplomats shows that the presence of Russian secret services in Hungary obviously runs “very deep” and that the country has a serious problem.
Telkes said the expulsion of 10 diplomats would help rebuild trust in Hungary in the eyes of the secret services of its NATO allies.
He said the decision was significant. “Expelling two or three people would have been a sign,” Telkes said. “Expelling 10 people already means war.”
Telkes said the expulsions create a serious security problem for Hungary.
Will Moscow turn off the taps?
A spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry condemned the expulsion of the diplomats in strong terms. She spoke of a “Russophobe lobby in Budapest” and announced a “hard and painful” response.
Russian lawmaker Andrey Kolesnik, a member of the State Duma’s Defense Committee, said the government would consider halting gas supplies to Hungary.
Foreign Minister Orban knows more about such Russian threats than anyone else in the new Hungarian government: In 2007, she wrote her doctoral thesis on Russia’s energy policy in Central Europe. A year later, she published a book: “Power, Energy, and the New Russian Imperialism.”
This article was originally published in German.