Hungary’s accusations of “foreign interference” in their upcoming parliamentary election have reached a crescendo with the release of clandestinely recorded conversations between the country’s foreign minister and his counterparts.
A series of reports appeared in the Hungarian press on Wednesday documenting Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto’s phone conversations with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on the sidelines of European Union summits. The recordings and their transcripts show how Szijjarto kept the Kremlin informed of EU debates regarding the future of Ukrainian membership in the confederation.
Szijjarto accused “certain foreign intelligence services,” working with an unnamed Hungarian journalist, of having “wiretapped” his phone conversations in an attempt to undermine Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government.
In one recording gathered while Szijjarto was attending an EU summit in December 2023, Lavrov is documented telling the foreign minister that “sometimes good-willed direct blackmailing is the best option.”
Another recording from July 2024 shows Szijjarto called Lavrov seeking to arrange a meeting between Orban and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The audio recordings, shared by outlets including VSquare, Frontstory, Delfi Estonia, the Insider, and the Investigative Centre of Jan Kuciak, seem to have been clandestinely gathered.
“Foreign intelligence interference in Hungary’s parliamentary election continues in an unusually aggressive and open manner,” Szijjarto said on social media, dismissing the reports as presenting nothing new about Hungary’s various geopolitical positions.
Separately, the Washington Post published a story on Wednesday documenting how Szijjarto stressed to Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi that Hungary was not involved in the Israeli operation to detonate pagers held by members of Hamas in 2024.
The report was based on government transcripts “obtained and authenticated by a Western intelligence service.”
Just a day before these latest leaks, Bloomberg published transcripts of a 2025 phone call between Orban and Putin in which the Hungarian leader vowed to help the Russian president in “any matter where I can be of assistance.”
The leaks amount to a veritable blitzkrieg of counterintelligence against the Orban government as U.S. Vice President JD Vance rallies for the floundering leader ahead of Sunday’s election.
“Unfortunately, there have been too few people who have been willing to stand up for the values of Western civilization,” the vice president said on Tuesday. “Viktor Orban is the rare exception that has unfortunately proved the rule.”
Vance said at a news conference upon arriving in Hungary yesterday that “what has happened in this country, what has happened in the midst of this election campaign, is one of the worst examples of foreign election interference that I’ve ever seen or ever even read about.”
He expressed particular ire for European Union officials, who he accused of having “done everything that they can to hold down the people of Hungary because they don’t like the leader who has actually stood up for the people of Hungary.”
These accusations ruffled feathers in Brussels, with EU foreign spokeswoman Anitta Hipper telling reporters on Wednesday that European officials would be using “diplomatic channels” to “convey our concerns to our U.S. counterparts” after Vance accused the confederation of “foreign interference” against Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
“We have appropriate channels, appropriate frameworks, diplomatic contacts,” Hipper said. “And that is where we will be bringing the discussions with the United States if they consider it something worthwhile pursuing with us.”
Other European officials pointed the finger back at the vice-president, saying his speaking tour in support of the Hungarian prime minister amounted to interference.
“I would like to point out — since Vance is complaining about the EU’s alleged interference in the election — that the U.S. vice president was in Hungary just a few days before the election,” German deputy government spokesperson Sebastian Hille said of Vance’s accusations. “This fact alone speaks for itself as to who is interfering.”
VANCE INSISTS ‘ORBAN IS GOING TO WIN’ AS HUNGARY OPPOSITION SAYS RESULTS ‘NOT WRITTEN IN WASHINGTON’
Peter Magyar, leader of the opposition TISZA party that is currently beating Orban in the polls, was intensely frustrated by the U.S. deploying its second-highest leader to stump for the prime minister, writing on social media that “no foreign country may interfere in Hungarian elections.”
“This is our country,” Magyar said. “Hungarian history is not written in Washington, Moscow, or Brussels — it is written in Hungary’s streets and squares.”
TISZA currently holds a double-digit lead over Orban’s FIDESZ party, with polls from the end of last month putting its public support at 49% compared to 39% for FIDESZ.