Russian state actors hacked into the Hungarian Foreign Ministry’s computer network compromising internal correspondence and even a secure network that transmits classified information. The recurring cyberattacks over the past decade were kept quiet by the Orbán government, and have not been successfully countered. With the help of internal documents and background interviews, Direkt36 exposes Russian cyber espionage against Hungary’s MFA.

In the past 12 years, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government has gotten into a situation many times, when they had to decide between the interests of Western allies, or Russia. Direkt36 has revealed many cases, where, in the end, the government favored Vladimir Putin and his circles. It occurred, for example, that they drove a Hungarian company out of business, just to be able to make space for a Russian firm.

Direkt36 learned that the construction permit for the Paks 2 nuclear power plant caused a conflict between two government members, László Palkovics and János Süli. Süli wanted the long-awaited green light for the project, but due to serious problems in the Russian plans identified by Palkovics’s team the government decided not to issue the permit.

The state authority overseeing the Paks expansion has serious concerns about the Russian construction company’s plans, which are to be approved within a few days. Direkt36’s investigation has found that political pressure on the Hungarian Atomic Energy Authority grows as the government is unhappy with the authority’s process.

Attila Aszódi became a target shortly before his dismissal in 2019 at a time when he had several conflicts with the Hungarian cabinet member supervising Paks 2. The State Secretary disagreed with the measures that would have benefitted the Russian party building the new nuclear power plant and would have changed the original timetable of the project.

A Russian company lobbied heavily against the €550m procurement of rail cars as they were unable to enter the competition. Then Hungary’s government suddenly canceled and restarted the bidding process.

Klaus Mangold, an influential German businessman with links to the European and Russian business elites has been advising the Orbán-government for many years. His consultancy contracts obtained by Direkt36 show that Mangold has been recently focusing on deepening Hungarian-German industrial relations.

After two years of negotiations, the Hungarian government adopted during the epidemic an important legal modification related to the Paks nuclear expansion. From now on, the position of the Russians will be stronger and the Hungarian state will bear higher risks.

Preparations for a megaproject in which a Russian-Hungarian company will supply 1300 rail cars to Egypt seem to have accelerated. Simultaneously, people close to Arpad Habony, the PM’s chief advisor, and Zsolt Hernadi, CEO of MOL have appeared inside the firm which co-owns the winning company.

In addition to the Russians, several government-close people are also watching closely the project developments. The business partner of Árpád Habony has appeared in the company that signed the contract. The investment is likely to come up at the Orbán-Putin meeting.