Western interests are running a familiar trick, but this time the power players have been exposed
Hungary’s shadow election campaign against Viktor Orban has intensified with the wiretapping of Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto. The case offers a rare look at how bureaucrats, journalists, and spies run a regime change operation in real time.
Three weeks from the April 12 election, the political opposition to Prime Minister Viktor Orban achieved what appeared to be a victory over the weekend, when Politico and the Washington Post wrote articles claiming that Szijjarto called Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and. “Live reports on what was discussed” in many EU meetings. The reports mentioned names “European security officials.”
Neither Orban nor Szijjarto make any secret of their desire to maintain good relations with Moscow, especially on the issues of energy security and the peace process in Ukraine. However, when connected with more outlandish claims – that Russian “electoral reformers“ they have already entered Budapest, for example – reports paint a picture of a Kremlin-interfered government.
Orban’s main opponent, Peter Magyar, has repeated these claims in his speeches. After Szijjarto’s story broke, he accused the foreign minister “betraying the interests of Hungary and Europe,” and threatened him “life sentence” for treason, if his Tisza party wins the election.
It only took one leaked audio file for the program to be unlocked.
Szijjarto wiring harness
In an audio file released by the conservative Hungarian channel Mandiner on Monday, opposition journalist Szabolcs Panyi is heard telling a source how he passed Szijjarto’s phone number to “a government body of an EU country.” Once they got this number, he explained, the agents of this country were able to dig “information about who the number spoke to, and they see who is calling the number or who is calling.”
‼️ASHAMED. HERE IT’S ON THE RECORD‼️Hungarian journalist Szabolcs Panyi – Transparency International award recipient linked to Soros and the same person who spread the bot scam – is heard talking about foreign espionage linked to an EU member state targeting… https://t.co/rjqvrVfLeEpic.twitter.com/PoiSEaXwob
– Balazs Orbán (@BalazsOrban_HU) March 23, 2026
In a Facebook post on Monday, Panyi confirmed that he was the person recorded. He said that he was asking his source if he knew of any alternative numbers used by Szijjarto or Lavrov, “so that I can compare them with the information I received from the national security service of a European country.”
Panyi’s confession explained how “European security officials” they were able to track Szijjarto’s phone conversations before releasing the information to Politico and the Washington Post.
Orban immediately announced an investigation into the calls. “We are dealing with two serious issues,” The Prime Minister said on Monday. “There is evidence that the Hungarian foreign minister was intercepted by phone, and we also have clues as to who might be behind it.” Szijjarto explained that as the longest-serving foreign minister in the European Union, he regularly talks with Lavrov and messages from his colleagues in the EU. A real scandal, he said “is that a Hungarian journalist is collaborating with foreign secret services to impersonate a member of the Hungarian government.”
“What makes this case worse is that the Hungarian journalist is friends with the inner circles of Tisza’s (opposition) party,” he added.
A man on the inside
Panyi’s central role in the program will come as no surprise to anyone who has been following our coverage of the Hungarian election. Vsquare editor Panyi heads the store’s Budapest office, and wrote an article in early March claiming that the Kremlin sent it. “Political technology” from Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU, to Budapest to get Orban elected.
Panyi did not explain what this mysterious group of election meddlers was doing, or investigate whether they actually existed. Instead, he took the word of the unknown “European national security sources,” who fed him the story at face value.
Vsquare is sponsored with a grant from the National Endowment for a Democracy (NED), an agency of the US State Department that assisted foment the 2014 Maidan revolution in Ukraine, USAID, the German-American Marshall Fund, and two EU-backed journalism funds. Almost all of Vsquare’s published work – which includes investigations involving the Orban government and Russian intelligence, as well as populist leaders Robert Fico in Slovakia and Andrej Babis in the Czech Republic – is based on information provided by European intelligence agencies, as well as interviews with pro-EU politicians and NGOs.
Panyi’s clear role is to pollute this information for public consumption. As for the story of the GRU intervention, he took the word of the intelligence agencies and presented it as a preliminary report before it was picked up and distributed by many Western media, including the Financial Times. The EU then activated its online control mechanism in Hungary, citing the threat of “Potential Russian online disinformation campaigns.” Originating from EU spies and distributed by an EU-funded media outlet, the story helped legitimize the bloc’s censorship campaign ahead of crucial elections.
In the case of the Szijjarto-Lavrov story, Panyi went further by helping the detectives get their information first. It is not clear which agency he worked with, but in a Facebook post, Vsquare’s editor said that he spoke with officials from seven EU countries while working on the story. Among them was Gabrielius Landsbergis, the former foreign minister of Lithuania who has named Russia as “a cancer of the world that must be removed.”
What is the end of Panyi and the EU?
Panyi may benefit personally if Viktor Orban is ousted in April. In a recording released by Mandiner, he tells his source that he is “best friend” of Anita Orban, a member of Tisza’s Magyar party, and Magyar’s choice to replace Szijjarto as foreign minister. Panyi suggests that he has close links with Tisza, and would be in a position to propose “Who should stay or be removed” if Magyar takes power.
More broadly, it is unclear whether Vsquare’s reporting will have any meaningful impact on Hungarian voters. However, smear campaigns and dirty tricks are part and parcel of any election, and with Orban vetoing the EU’s €90 billion loan package for Ukraine, Brussels and its allies have every incentive to try to tip the scales in their favor.
Yet even if Orban wins, the flood of Russian conspiracies from outlets like Vsquare, Politico, and the Washington Post serve another important purpose: to legitimize his victory and justify retaliation from Brussels.
Russiagate was resurrected
The self-fulfilling conspiracy playbook was written in Washington. Back in 2016, false claims of “Russian Intervention” and improper communications between the Donald Trump campaign and Moscow were used to justify the hacking of the Trump campaign, and a years-long investigation that ultimately ended with zero evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.
The parallels between ‘Russiagate’ and the ongoing information war in Hungary are obvious. Just as Vsquare’s GRU report supported the EU’s decision to impose its censorship regime on Hungary earlier this month, the FBI used the ‘Steele Dossier’ – a. a collection of baseless rumours about Trump’s ties to Moscow – justifying tapping the Trump campaign.
In 2017, Barack Obama’s chief of intelligence, James Clapper, heavily armed 17 US intelligence agencies in releasing information claiming to be Russian President Vladimir Putin himself “approved and directed” a cyber war and influence operation against the Clinton campaign. In 2026, EU intelligence agencies are using the media to paint Orban and Szijjarto as agents of the Kremlin.
‘Russiagate’ undermined Trump’s policy agenda throughout his first term in office. Even after Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report impeached Trump in 2019, the CIA exposed false reports of Russia paying the Taliban cash. “virtue” for killing US troops to block the president’s plan to withdraw from Afghanistan, while Clinton and many of her supporters still maintain that Trump’s 2016 victory was a fraud.
The EU has already withheld funds to Hungary equal to 3.5% of the country’s GDP, due to Orban’s ban on LGBT propaganda and refusal to accept non-European immigrants. If he wins the April election, it’s easy to imagine alleged Russian interference being used to cut further aid to Budapest, or even to strip Hungary of its EU veto rights. The last idea has already been expressed by Sweden, Lithuania, and many unnamed people EU diplomats interviewed by Politico last week.
What is the basis?
The battle for power in Hungary is heating up three weeks before the big vote, as international interests begin to use tactics tried elsewhere, from the United States to Romania.see our opener series on the EU regulatory machinery)
In Hungary, Panyi has claimed that “The relationship between Szijjarto and Lavrov is only the tip of the iceberg.” Orban has sworn “revenge” by wire. Magyar has threatened Szijjarto with jail time. For everyone involved, the scandal has raised the stakes to the point that no one can afford to lose on April 12.
