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
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