Péter Magyar

Russia is accused of quietly intervening in Hungary’s looming election, with intelligence sources warning the Kremlin is trying to tilt the vote in favour of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

Investigative reports suggest operatives linked to Vladimir Putin have been deployed to help orchestrate online attacks against opposition challenger Péter Magyar. The election, scheduled for April, is widely seen as a defining geopolitical moment for the EU member state — determining whether Budapest drifts further towards Moscow or back towards the West.

Russian ‘political technologists’ move in

According to reporting by journalist Szabolcs Panyi, European intelligence agencies believe a team of Russian “political technologists” has arrived in Budapest.

In Kremlin parlance, the term refers to strategists who design influence campaigns, shape narratives and deploy online manipulation to influence elections. The operatives are reportedly working under the oversight of Sergey Kiriyenko, a senior figure inside the Russian presidential administration.

Their mission is said to be clear: amplify smear campaigns against Magyar and his Tisza Party through coordinated social media operations and algorithm manipulation.

Warnings echo inside Hungary’s parliament

Concerns about Russian interference have reportedly reached Hungary’s own security institutions.

At a confidential session of the National Security Committee in the Hungarian parliament, intelligence officials discussed warnings that Kremlin-linked strategists were active in the country. The government has publicly said it cannot confirm their presence.

Further reports claim the Moscow-based disinformation firm Agency for Social Design — already sanctioned by Western governments — has been tasked with supporting Orbán’s campaign.

Orbán’s Moscow ties under scrutiny

Orbán maintains one of the closest relationships with Moscow among EU leaders.

Hungary continues to import large volumes of Russian gas and Orbán has met Putin regularly since returning to power in 2010. Earlier this year the Russian president publicly praised him as a leader defending “national interests”.

Opposition figures say the stakes are existential: Hungary’s democratic future and its place inside the European Union.

Magyar has demanded the government explain the alleged interference, warning that Hungary — whose streets still bear memories of the crushed Hungarian Revolution of 1956 — must not become a battleground for foreign political warfare again.

Russia working to 'tip scale' for Orban in Hungary election

What on earth happened to Orbán when he was younger? He and other students founded FIDESZ in 1988, and really came to the fore in 1989 when he gave a speech during the reburial of Imre Nagy and other national martyrs of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, demanding the withdrawl of Soviet troops from Hungarian territory.

The speech that the 26 year old gave that earned him a beating from the police

My Fellow Citizens! 

Since the beginning of the Russian occupation and the communist dictatorship 40 years ago, Hungarian people once had an opportunity, once had adequate courage and strength to attempt to reach the objectives articulated in 1848: national independence and political freedom. To this day our goals have not changed, today we still have not relented on ’48, just as we have not relented on ’56 either.  

Those young people who today are fighting for the establishment of liberal democracy in Hungary bow their heads before the communist Imre Nagy and his associates for two reasons. We honor them as statesmen who identified with the will of Hungarian society, who in order to do this were able to relinquish their holy communist taboos, that is, the unquestioned service of the Russian empire and the dictatorship of the party. For us, they are statesmen who even in the shadow of the gallows refused to stand in file with the murderers who decimated society, statesmen who even at the cost of their lives did not disavow the nation that had accepted them and placed their confidence in them. We learned from their fate that democracy and communism are irreconcilable.........(cut)

..........Today, 33 years after the revolution and 31 years after the execution of the last legitimate prime minister, we have the opportunity to peacefully achieve all that the ’56 revolutionaries attained for the nation through bloody conflict, if only for a few days. If we believe in our own strength, we will be capable of bringing an end to the communist dictatorship, if we are sufficiently resolute, we can force the ruling party to submit itself to free elections. If we do not lose sight of the principles of ’56, we can elect for ourselves a government that will initiate immediate talks regarding the quick withdrawal of Soviet troops. If we have the mettle to want all this, then, but only then, we can fulfill the will of our revolution. 

Nobody can believe that the party state is going to change on its own. Recall that on October 6, 1956, the day of László Rajk’s burial, the party newspaper Szabad Nép proclaimed in colossal letters on its front page “Never Again!” Just three weeks later, the communist party’s ÁVH officers opened fire on peaceful, unarmed demonstrators. Not even two years later after the “Never Again,” the HSWP sentenced innocent hundreds, among them their own comrades, to death in show trials similar to that of Rajk. 

It is for this reason that we cannot be satisfied with the promises of communist political officials,  promises that oblige them to nothing at all. We must ensure that the ruling party cannot use force against us, even if it wants to. There is no other way to avoid more coffins and overdue funerals such as today’s. 

Imre Nagy, Miklós Gimes, Géza Losonczy, Pál Maléter, József Szilágyi and the nameless hundreds sacrificed their lives for Hungarian independence and freedom. Young Hungarians, before whom these ideas remain inviolable to this day, bow their heads before your memory. 

Rest in Peace.