The leader of the opposition Tisza party and a member of the European Parliament Peter Magyar has released an audio recording purportedly showing Hungarian Defense Minister Kristof Szalai-Bobrovnicky speaking about breaking with the past policy of peace.
This contradicts the official position of the Hungarian government that the country remains aloof from any war, which is what Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has built his power on.
This is reported by the Hungarian publication Telex.
In a recording dated April 2023, Szalai-Bobrovnicki speaks of the decision to create a “strong, combat-ready Hungarian army”, which means abandoning the “peace mentality”. The so-called rejuvenation policy, which was carried out under the slogan of renewing the army’s command structure, is in fact nothing more than a desire to install more loyal military personnel to the Orbán regime.
Magyar claims that Orbanʼs government is lying and wants to drag Hungary into war.
"While the Orban government has been talking for years about protecting Hungarians, this very government is ready to sacrifice the security of its own citizens for the sake of money and power. This is not a political mistake. This is a crime. A crime for which there is no and will be no forgiveness," said Magyar.
In response to the publication, Szalai-Bobrovnitsky did not deny the authenticity of the recording and stated: "I am creating an army capable and ready to defend the country with weapons in hand... Peace requires strength."
Orbanʼs chief of staff Gergely Gulyas also commented on the situation, calling the recording "one that ʼdoes not go beyond the ordinaryʼ". He emphasized that in the face of an imminent threat of war, the words of the defense minister are "obvious and correct". At the same time, Gulyas did not specify from whose attack Hungary intends to defend itself.
The essence of the recording is not that the Minister of Defense is talking about a combat-ready army — Telex notes this is quite logical for the government, given the war in a neighbouring country. Other European countries have also begun to strengthen their defense capabilities in response to Russian aggression. However, the Hungarian government has been arguing all this time that any such actions only increase the risk of escalation, and that supplying weapons to Ukraine allegedly only inflames the conflict. It turns out that when Hungary arms itself, it is for the sake of peace, and when others do the same, it means that they are seeking war.
Journalists write that the defense ministerʼs statement about abandoning the "peace mentality" is politically inconvenient for the Hungarian government. This can be interpreted as a denial of the governmentʼs statements about a peaceful policy, which is what Magyar did.
The recording with Szalai-Bobrovnickiʼs words was published on May 8. And on May 9, SBU reported that for the first time in the history of Ukraine it had exposed a Hungarian military intelligence agent network that was spying against Ukraine. According to the investigation, this cell was collecting information about the defense of Transcarpathia, looking for weaknesses in ground and air defense, and investigating the mood of the locals — in particular, how they might behave if Hungarian military forces entered the region.
- From 2002 to early February 2024, Peter Magyar was a loyal member of the pro-government Fidesz party in Hungary. But already in the winter of that year, he became the cause of the biggest political crisis in the 14 years of Prime Minister Viktor Orbánʼs rule — tens of thousands of people came to Magyarʼs rallies, and his interviews garnered millions of views. Among other things, Magyar does not oppose the European Union and NATO and has no sympathy for Moscow and Vladimir Putin. He also came to Kyiv in the summer of 2024 and delivered humanitarian aid.
- This is not the first time that Magyar has released audio recordings about the work of the Hungarian government. In the spring of 2024, he released a recording that testified to the corruption of Hungarian government officials — this was investigated by the prosecutorʼs office. Thousands of Hungarians then took to the streets in Budapest to protest.
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