Recently, a bombshell report by the Washington Post alleged, among other things, that Hungary had leaked confidential information to Moscow. With Hungarian voters heading to the polls to elect their next government in less than two weeks, the timing of the report’s release could not be much worse for the current government. It may seem that this could be the final nail in the coffin of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who was already trailing badly in the polls against opposition party leader Péter Magyar. However, the seemingly concerted effort to remove Orbán could yet backfire.
WaPo’s revelations have shook not just Hungary, but the EU as a whole — including neighboring countries typically sympathetic to Hungary. According to the report, Hungary’s Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó has, for years, routinely called his Russian equivalent Sergey Lavrov during breaks during closed-door Council of the European Union meetings, offering Moscow real-time information on what EU leaders were discussing and providing recommendations on how Russia should act in response.
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