Hungary’s Foreign Minister Was Caught on Tape Spying for Russia. He Still Has His Job.

Corruption of Power GriftMatrix

Verified recordings, 72 delisted Russian entities, zero consequences

Okay so Hungary’s Foreign Minister got caught on tape coordinating with Russia and I genuinely don’t understand why this isn’t bigger news, so let me walk you through it ’cause it’s wild.

Peter Szijjarto is Hungary’s Foreign Minister. He’s been in the job since 2014. Hungary is a NATO country. They sit in EU council meetings where sanctions against Russia are debated, where classified intelligence gets shared, where Europe’s Ukraine strategy is discussed behind closed doors.

And Szijjarto has been calling Sergey Lavrov and telling him everything.

We know this because a consortium of investigative outlets – VSquare, The Insider, OCCRP, and a few others – got verified audio recordings of multiple phone calls between Szijjarto and Lavrov spanning 2023 to 2025. They published the recordings. You can go listen to them right now.

In one call, from July 2024, Szijjarto tells Lavrov he’ll send a classified EU document about Ukraine’s accession negotiations to Moscow. His exact words: “I will send it immediately. I will send it to my embassy in Moscow, and my ambassador will forward it to your chief of staff.” That’s a NATO foreign minister promising to hand over confidential EU strategy documents to Russia through diplomatic back channels. On tape.

In another call, Lavrov rings up Szijjarto and says “I am calling at the request of Alisher” – that’s Alisher Usmanov, one of the richest men in Russia – “and he just asked me to remind you that you were doing something about his sister.” Szijjarto tells him yeah, we’re working on it, we’re submitting a proposal to delist her.

Her name is Gulbahor Ismailova. She was on the EU sanctions list ’cause of her brother’s Kremlin ties. And in March 2025, she was removed from the list. It actually worked.

But that’s just one name on one call. In another recording, Szijjarto tells Lavrov that Hungary managed to get 72 Russian entities removed from EU sanctions. Seventy-two. And then – and this is the part where I had to put my phone down – he asked Russia to help him find arguments for removing more. He asked the country being sanctioned to help him fight the sanctions.

Lavrov’s response, on tape: “good-willed direct blackmailing.”

He was complimenting Hungary’s technique.

So what you’re looking at here is a NATO foreign minister who sits in the meetings, takes the notes, and then calls Moscow. Not in the dramatic spy movie sense. In the boring, bureaucratic, devastatingly effective sense. He also coordinated with Russia’s Energy Minister to protect Russian companies and banks from the EU’s 18th sanctions package. He ran interference across the entire Russian business structure from inside the EU’s own deliberations.

European politicians are using words like “treason.” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the recordings “reveal a pattern of systematic undermining of European security.” MEPs from multiple countries want Hungary’s voting rights suspended.

And nobody has been charged. Nobody.

Hungary’s election is April 12. That’s four days from now. Szijjarto is still the Foreign Minister. Orban is still running for reelection. The guy whose top diplomat was caught on verified tape spying for Russia is asking voters to give him another term.

Orban’s Fidesz party is behind Peter Magyar’s Tisza party in the polls, so there’s that. But “trailing in the polls” only matters if there are consequences for getting caught. And so far the EU has done exactly what Lavrov complimented them for being vulnerable to.

Nothing.

72 Russian entities removed from sanctions. Classified EU documents delivered to Moscow. A Russian oligarch’s sister delisted on personal request from Lavrov. All verified. All on tape. All unpunished.

Sources