On Friday, May 9, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó announced that Budapest is expelling two Ukrainian diplomats which Budapest accused of spying for Ukraine.
The sudden accusation came after, earlier that morning, Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) reported it had detained two individuals for allegedly spying for Hungary – both former soldiers.
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The two Ukrainian citizens were reportedly secretly recruited to determine whether or not people living in the far-western Zakarpattia region – which borders Hungary – would approve of a Hungarian invasion.
According to the Ukrainian investigation, the two had also been gathering intelligence about the Ukrainian military, including the locations of Ukrainian air defense systems in Zakarpattia.
“For the first time in Ukraine’s history, the SBU has uncovered a Hungarian military intelligence network conducting espionage activities to the detriment of our state,” the agency said in a statement.
The two detainees – a man and a woman – were reportedly supervised by a Hungarian intelligence officer. Both face life imprisonment.
Hungary reacted to the news of its alleged agents being discovered by expelling “two spies working under diplomatic cover at the Ukrainian Embassy in Budapest,” according to Szijjártó.
Szijjártó attempted to dismiss Ukraine’s SBU investigation as “the latest smear campaign.”
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“We will not tolerate the constant launching of such smear campaigns against Hungary and the Hungarian people in Ukraine,” Szijjártó said in a video posted on Facebook, where he claimed Kyiv was fueling so-called “growing anti-Hungarian propaganda.”
He also claimed that Ukraine had begun spreading disinformation because of Hungary’s refusal to get involved in the war – namely, by not supplying Ukraine with weapons and by blocking its EU integration processes.
According to the SBU, the agent recruited by Budapest had received specific intelligence-gathering tasks from the Hungarian side, aimed at assessing the military and social situation in Zakarpattia.
In particular, the tasks included:
- Assessing how local civilians and military personnel would react to the deployment of a peacekeeping mission in the region, including Hungarian troops
- Identifying available weapons and military equipment on the black market in Zakarpattia
- Evaluating the scale of migration among the Hungarian minority in the region
- Determining the strength and location of Ukrainian military forces, vehicles, and equipment
- Assessing the staffing and numbers of Ukrainian law enforcement agencies
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