Hungary Probes Journalist Over ‘Ukraine Spy’ Claims, Halts Gas To Kyiv (Worthy News In-Depth)

by Stefan J. Bos, Worthy News Europe Bureau Chief reporting from Budapest, Hungary

BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – Hungary’s government says it has launched a criminal investigation into a prominent journalist over allegations he spied for Ukraine, while Budapest also began halting natural gas deliveries to the war-torn nation.

The announcement came as Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who has kept close ties with Russia despite its invasion of Ukraine, is fighting to extend his 16 years in office amid an unprecedented challenge from a center-right opposition party.

On Thursday, Orbán’s chief of staff told journalists that reporter Szabolcs Panyi, who has been investigating the government’s ties to Moscow, was “a spy working for Ukraine.”

The journalist has strongly denied the accusations.

SPY CLAIMS DENIED

The allegations followed reports that Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó often briefed Moscow on closed-door ministerial meetings of the European Union.

Szijjártó has denied wrongdoing, saying the information shared was not confidential and part of normal diplomatic practices.

“More and more Ukrainian spies are being uncovered in the country. The first of them is Szabolcs Panyi, who was discovered to have spied against his home country in collusion with a foreign state,” said Gergely Gulyás, Orbán’s chief of staff.

Government spokesperson Zoltán Kovács said a formal investigation has been launched into the journalist.

JOURNALIST DENIES ACCUSATIONS

Panyi dismissed the accusation.

“Accusing investigative journalists of espionage is entirely unprecedented in the 21st century from a European Union member state,” he wrote on his Facebook page.

Panyi works for Hungarian investigative outlet Direkt36 and Warsaw-based VSquare.org.

He was earlier involved in the Pegasus Project that revealed how spyware developed by the Israeli cyber-arms company NSO Group had allegedly been placed by governments on cellphones of journalists, dissidents, and rights activists, including in Hungary.

NGO Group says its program was developed to take over the camera, text, and microphone functions of smartphones to help fight terrorism and crime.

The latest revelations, however, came as campaigning has accelerated ahead of Hungary’s April 12 parliamentary election, and relations between Budapest and Kyiv have reached new lows.

OFFERING STARK CHOICE

Orbán has cast the election as a stark choice between “war or peace,” saying his center-right opponent would drag Hungary into the war in neighboring Ukraine—an allegation the opposition has firmly denied.

He has also accused Kyiv and Brussels of interfering in Hungary’s election, a charge both sides reject.

Earlier this week, Orbán ordered an investigation into what he said was the wiretapping of his foreign minister, as his government responded to reports about its ties with Russia.

The government has also had a tense relationship with independent media, including publicly blacklisting a Worthy News reporter and seven other journalists over what it described as critical reporting.

ENERGY DISPUTE DEEPENS

Thursday’s standoff with the journalist came amid mounting tensions with Kyiv over disruptions of cheap Russian oil deliveries to Hungary ahead of the elections.

Prime Minister Orbán said Hungary would gradually stop sending natural gas to Ukraine until oil flows resume through the Soviet-era Druzhba pipeline.

Hungary and Slovakia—whose leaders are outliers in the European Union for maintaining relations with Moscow—blame Kyiv for an outage on the pipeline supplying their refineries with Russian crude via Ukraine.

Kyiv says the pipeline was damaged by a Russian drone attack in late January and that repairs are ongoing.

Hungary, however, says the disruption is politically motivated, as it opposes Ukraine’s membership in the European Union and further military assistance to the country.

BROADER CONCERNS

Orbán has also blocked a planned 90 billion euro ($103 billion) European Union loan package for Ukraine over the energy standoff.

European Union leaders say the developments come amid broader concerns over press freedom and political tensions in Hungary, where critics say independent journalists face increasing pressure, as tensions rise over the war in Ukraine.

Brussels has withheld billions of euros in EU funding for Hungary, citing rule-of-law concerns that Orbán claims are politically motivated, linked in part to his “pro-family” and “anti-migration and anti-war” stance.

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