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Hungary is working closely with Russia to lift sanctions on Russian individuals who are linked to Kremlin boss Vladimir Putin.
The International News Agency Reuters points out that just days before parliamentary elections in Hungary, an intercepted phone call between Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov regarding EU sanctions is causing unrest.
The Warsaw-based news portal Vsquare.org published a recording of a conversation from August 2024. In it, Szijjártó reportedly pledged to work with Slovakia to remove the sister of a Russian businessman from the EU sanctions list.
"We will do our best to remove it from the list ," Szijjártó said in the English-language recording.
“It is a huge scandal (...) that foreign intelligence services have been continuously tapping my phone calls and that these foreign intelligence services have published these phone calls a week and a half before the Hungarian parliamentary elections,” Szijjártó said on his Facebook page. The Russian government initially made no comment on the reports.
Investigative news portal Vsquare also reported on another phone call, although without publishing a recording. In this call, Szijjártó allegedly promised Russian Deputy Energy Minister Pavel Sorokin that he would work to lift EU sanctions against Russia’s shadow oil tanker fleet.
The announcement comes just before the April 12 elections, in which Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is under pressure. Independent polls show the opposition Tisza party with a clear lead. Despite Russia's war in Ukraine, Orbán maintains close ties with President Vladimir Putin. Hungary remains heavily dependent on Russian oil and gas.
The incident reinforces concerns that the government in Budapest is representing Russian interests and undermining EU aid to Ukraine. Earlier this month, the Washington Post reported that Szijjártó had been briefing Lavrov on internal EU meetings for years during the holidays.
The Slovak Foreign Ministry stated that it "will not comment or disclose the details of its negotiating positions or those of other member states."
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