A former Ukrainian diplomat, arrested by Budapest in May, now claims to be Russian and voiced his desire to return to his current country.
Hungarian security forces arrested the man, identified as “S. Aleksandrov,” in broad daylight in May during a highly publicized, televised bust. This was shortly after Kyiv accused Hungary of setting up a spy ring in western Ukraine to gauge the local reaction to a potential Hungarian invasion.
Hungary accused the ex-diplomat of spying for Ukraine and arrested him alongside another, unnamed man. The former diplomat was then deported to Ukraine.
But Hungarian news outlet Blikk, citing the man’s lawyer, said the court has subsequently annulled the deportation decision since the man’s alleged threat to national security has not been thoroughly established.
Moreover, the lawyer added that the individual, who had worked for the Ukrainian embassy in Hungary in the 2010s, also possesses Russian citizenship since he hails from Ukraine’s Crimea, occupied by Russia since 2014.
As a result, the lawyer argued that the ex-diplomat should not be deported to Ukraine but rather, be allowed to travel to Russia voluntarily after the arrest, in line with his stated wish.
The lawyer also argued that the man had only listed Ukraine as his homeland in his Hungarian residency application because the form has no space to fill in an alternate citizenship.
While Hungary now permits the ex-diplomat to return and reunite with his family, it is unclear whether he is able to leave the country due to Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, with Ukraine currently refusing to acknowledge dual citizenship.
Draft-age males are also barred from leaving Ukraine during martial law.
What happened?
In early May, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said it broke up a Hungarian spy ring tasked with the mission of determining the level of local support to a possible invasion by Hungarian troops, in Kyiv’s first accusation of its kind against a NATO country.
Hungary, under Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, has espoused close ties with the Kremlin and often clashes with fellow EU and NATO members on Russian policies – including a recent veto on the EU’s Russia sanctions package.
The alleged Hungarian spy ring led to a diplomatic spat between Kyiv and Budapest, who accused each other of spying.
On May 9, Budapest expelled Ukrainian diplomats from the country, with Kyiv also expelling two Hungarian diplomats.
- Aleksandrov, the ex-diplomat, was arrested in broad daylight on May 9 in downtown Budapest while allegedly engaged in acts of espionage.
“Late yesterday afternoon, [Hungary’s Counter Terrorism Center] TEK officers arrested a Ukrainian citizen in downtown Budapest. The National Directorate of Immigration issued an entry and residence ban on him due to espionage activities,” TEK said at the time.
“After clarifying the situation, the authority deported the middle-aged man from Hungary during the night, given that his activities greatly endangered the sovereignty of our country. The person concerned previously carried out his work under diplomatic cover, but his official status has now ceased,” it added.