Orbán: Ukrainians want to use Tisza Party to disrupt Hungarian poll on their EU accession

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán convened the country's Defense Council on Tuesday afternoon. Following the meeting, he posted a video summarizing what had been discussed, saying that the government believes there is a coordinated secret service operation underway against Hungary.

“The coordinated smear campaign against Hungary was launched by Ukraine in order to disrupt our initiative for Hungarians' sharing their opinion on Ukraine's EU membership,” the Prime Minister stated in the video.

"At today's meeting of the Defense Council, among others, we learned that the in order to carry out this operation, the Ukrainians have revived their contacts in Hungary and have – with the help of a Hungarian political party – launched an attack against the Hungarian Armed Forces," he says in the video, while footage of Péter Magyar, president of the Tisza Party, and Romulusz Ruszin-Szendi, former chief of staff, who was fired in 2023, and who recently joined the Tisza Party and currently serves as advisor to Péter Magyar, was being shown.

According to Orbán, this means that "a Hungarian opposition party has taken an active role in a Ukrainian secret service operation." The Prime Minister went on to say that further secret service operations can be expected until the conclusion of the indicative vote, and that the Hungarian services are prepared for them.

The meeting was most likely prompted by last Friday's announcement of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) claiming that they had uncovered a Hungarian military spy network in western Ukraine and had arrested two agents. Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó then announced that Hungary was expelling two Ukrainian diplomats because of espionage. After this, Máté Kocsis, the leader of Fidesz's parliamentary group, suggested that the SBU was collaborating with the Tisza Party.