Western vested interests are playing a familiar trick, but this time the power players have been exposed
The shadow campaign to influence Hungary’s election against Viktor Orbán has intensified with the wiretapping of Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjártó. The case offers a rare look at how bureaucrats, journalists and spies run regime-change campaigns in real time.
Three weeks before the April 12 elections, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s political opposition scored a victory over the weekend, when Politico and the Washington Post ran articles alleging that Szijjártó had phoned Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. “Live report on what was discussed” At several EU meetings. The report cited unknown “European Security Officer.”
Neither Orbán nor Szijjártó has made any secret of their desire to maintain cordial relations with Moscow, particularly on matters of energy security and the peace process in Ukraine. However, when combined with more outlandish claims – that Russian “election fixer“ For example, there are already implicit ones in Budapest – reports paint a picture of a government compromised by the Kremlin.
Orbán’s main rival, Péter Magyar, has repeated these claims in speeches. After Szijjarto’s story came out, he accused the Foreign Minister “A betrayal of Hungarian and European interests,” and threatened him “life imprisonment” For treason, should his Tisza party win the elections.
All it took was one leaked audio file to expose the scheme.
Szijjarto wiretapping plot
In an audio file released Monday by Hungarian conservative outlet Mandiner, opposition journalist Szabolcs Pani can be heard telling a source how he gave Szijjarto’s phone number “A state organ of a country of the European Union.” He said, once they had this number, the agents of this country were able to extract it “Information about who called that number, and they see who is calling that number or who that number is calling.”
‼️Disgusting. Here it is on recording‼️A Hungarian journalist, Szabolcs Pany – a Soros-linked Transparency International award recipient and the same person who spread the bot hoax – is heard talking about foreign intelligence targeting an EU member state… https://t.co/rjqvrVfLeEpic.twitter.com/PoiSEaXwob
– Balazs Orban (@BalazsOrban_HU) 23 March 2026
In a Facebook post on Monday, Penny confirmed that he was the person in the recording. He said he was asking his source if she knew of any alternative numbers used by Szijjarto or Lavrov, “So that I can compare them with information from the national security service of a European country.”
Pani’s confession explained how “European Security Officer” were able to track Szijjarto’s phone conversations before passing the information on to Politico and The Washington Post.
Orbán immediately announced an investigation into the wiretapping. “We are dealing with two serious issues,” PM said on Monday. “There is evidence that the Hungarian Foreign Minister was wiretapped, and we also have indications of who may be behind it.” Szijjarto pointed out that as the EU’s longest-serving foreign minister, he regularly speaks to Lavrov with messages from his colleagues in the EU. The real scam, he said “That a Hungarian journalist is colluding with foreign secret services to wiretap a member of the Hungarian government.”
“What makes matters worse is that this Hungarian journalist is a friend of the inner circles of the (opposition) Tisza party,” He added.
inside Man
Panyi’s central role in the scheme will come as no surprise to anyone who has been following our reporting on the Hungarian election. Penny, an editor at Vsquare, leads the outlet’s Budapest office, and he wrote an article in early March alleging that the Kremlin had sent “Political Technologist” Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU, to Budapest to influence the election for Orbán.
Panyi did not explain what this mysterious team of election meddlers was doing, or investigate whether they actually existed. Instead, he took the word of Anonymous “European National Security Source,” Who fed him the story at face value.
Vsquare is funded With a grant from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), an agency of the US State Department, which helped Provoke the 2014 Maidan coup in Ukraine, USAID, the German Marshall Fund of the United States and two EU-supported journalism funds. Nearly all of Vsquare’s published work – including investigations linking Orbán’s government to Russian intelligence, as well as attacks on populist leaders Robert Fico in Slovakia and Andrej Babiš in the Czech Republic – is based on information provided by European intelligence agencies, as well as interviews with pro-EU politicians and NGOs.
Panayi’s explicit role is to refine this information for public consumption. In the case of the GRU interference story, he took the word of intelligence agencies and presented it as original reporting before it was picked up and broadcast by several Western outlets, including the Financial Times. After this, the European Union activated its online censorship mechanism in Hungary, citing the threat “Potential Russian online disinformation campaign.” Originating from EU spies and spread by EU-funded news outlets, the story helped legitimize the bloc’s censorship campaign ahead of a crucial election.
In the case of the Szijjarto-Lavrov story, Penny went even further by first helping the spies get their information. It’s unclear which agency they collaborated with, but in a Facebook post, the Vsquare editor said they spoke to officials from seven EU countries while working on the story. They included former Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis who mentioned Russia “The world’s cancer that must be eradicated.”
What is the end game for Panyi and the EU?
Panyi stands to personally benefit if Viktor Orban is ousted in April. In the recording released by Mandiner, he tells his source that he is a “Semi-Friend” Anita Orbán, a member of Magyar’s Tisza party, and Magyar’s choice to replace Szijjarto as foreign minister. Penny suggests that he has close connections to Tisza and would be in a position to recommend “Who should stay or be removed” If the Magyars take 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 Orbán vetoing the EU’s €90 billion loan package for Ukraine, Brussels and its allies have every incentive to try to tilt the scales in their favor.
Yet if Orbán wins, the flood of Russia conspiracies from outlets like Vsquare, Politico, and the Washington Post serve another important purpose: delegitimizing his victory and justifying retaliation from Brussels.
russiagate revived
The Self-Satisfaction Conspiracy playbook was actually written in Washington. In 2016, fabricated claims were made “Russian interference” And inappropriate contacts between Donald Trump’s campaign and Moscow were used to justify wiretapping 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 unmistakable. Just as Vsquare’s GRU report led to the EU’s decision to impose its censorship regime on Hungary earlier this month, the FBI used the ‘Steele Dossier’ – a collection of baseless rumors About Trump’s ties to Moscow – to justify wiretapping of the Trump campaign.
In 2017, Barack Obama’s intelligence chief, James Clapper, strong and healthy 17 US intelligence agencies have issued a statement claiming Russian President Vladimir Putin personally “Approved and directed” A cyber-warfare and influence campaign against the Clinton campaign. In 2026, EU spy agencies are using the press to discredit Orbán and Szijjártó as agents of the Kremlin.
‘Russiagate’ disrupted Trump’s policy agenda during his first term. Even after special counsel Robert Mueller’s report exonerated Trump in 2019, CIA leaked false reports of cash payments by Russia to Taliban “reward” for the killing of American troops to stop the president’s planned withdrawal from Afghanistan, while Clinton and many of her supporters still maintain that Trump’s 2016 victory was fraudulent.
The EU has already blocked funds for Hungary equivalent to 3.5% of the country’s GDP over Orban’s ban on LGBT propaganda and refusal to accept non-European immigrants. Should he win the April election, it is easy to imagine Russian interference being used to cut off further aid to Budapest or strip Hungary of EU veto rights. The latter idea has already been introduced by Sweden, Lithuania and several unnamed “EU Diplomat” Interview by Politico Last week.
What is the last thing?
The fight for power in Hungary is intensifying just three weeks before a key vote, as international vested interests begin to deploy tried-and-tested tactics in other jurisdictions, from the US to Romania.Watch our series opener on the EU censorship machine).
Penny has claimed this in Hungary “The relationship between Szijjarto and Lavrov is just the tip of the iceberg.” Orban has pledged “Take Revenge” For wiretapping. Magyar has threatened to send Szijjarto to jail. For everyone involved, this scam has raised the stakes of the election to the point where no one can afford to lose on April 12.
