Magyar vs. Moscow: Hungary's new tough stance toward Russia

Hungarian PM Peter Magyar has abruptly ended the era of his predecessor's warm relations with Russia: Budapest has expelled 10 Russian diplomats from the country. Moscow is considering halting gas supplies in response.

While Viktor Orban was in power, no other EU member state was as pro-Russian as Hungary. Indeed, the former 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 former Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto had passed on confidential information from EU meetings to his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov.

All this came to an end in May, when the new government headed by Peter Magyar took office.

An unambiguous signal to Moscow

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 Russia, 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 question were spies.

The minister went on to say that the decision "protects Hungary's security and sovereignty," adding, "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."

Back to old alliances

The minister's brief announcement immediately generated a huge number of headlines and comments — hardly surprising given that this was not only evidence of the government's 180° turn on the country'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 that 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 that such a step "should really have been taken four-and-a-half years ago," adding that "Hungary is now settling its old debt with its allies."

Reliance on Russian gas?

Under Viktor Orban, Hungary was in fact the only EU country never to unreservedly condemn Russia's all-out war against Ukraine.

Indeed, during the last two years of his rule, Orban even blamed Ukraine and the West for Russia's aggression.

But long before that — even after he came to power back in 2010 — Viktor Orban took a markedly pro-Russian 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 Hungarian authorities 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 US 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-Russian course

Orban's strictly pro-Russian course was laterally rejected by many Hungarians.

The decidedly pro-European and pro-Western orientation of Peter Magyar and his Tisza party had a considerable role to play in their election victory earlier this year. The EU flag was often seen and spontaneous cries of "Russians, go home" often heard at election rallies last spring.

Unlike Viktor Orban, Magyar and leading politicians in his Tisza party are convinced that Hungary's place is exclusively in Europe 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 says that the expulsion of 10 diplomats will help rebuild trust in Hungary in the eyes of the secret services of its NATO allies.

At the same time, he emphasizes the scale of the move: "Expelling two or three people would have been a sign. Expelling 10 people already means war."

Telkes went on to say that the move creates a serious security problem for Hungary.

Will Moscow turn off the taps?

The spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry condemned the expulsion of Russian diplomats in unusually 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 that halting gas supplies to Hungary would have to be considered.

Hungary's Foreign Minister Anita Orban knows more about such Russian threats than anyone else in the new Hungarian government: She wrote her doctoral thesis in 2007 on Russia's energy policy in Central Europe. A year later, she published a book entitled "Power, Energy, and the New Russian Imperialism."

This article was originally published in German.