Since Péter Magyar came to power in Hungary, the country has turned 180 degrees on Russia. Now, the strictest measure against the Kremlin has been taken so far: Budapest expelled ten Russian diplomats.
Under Viktor Orbán, no other EU country was as close to Russia as Hungary. The deposed autocrat was sometimes called "Putin's pincher" or "Kremlin agent" - because of his obedience to the Russian dictator. For a long time, Hungary was considered a security risk in the EU and NATO, and Russian spies could operate in the country without any interference. In the spring of 2026, it became clear that even the former Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó had leaked confidential information from EU meetings to his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov.
All this ended with the inauguration of the new government headed by Péter Magyar in early May 2026. Unlike Orbán, the new Hungarian Prime Minister has already repeatedly condemned Russia's aggressive war against Ukraine with extreme severity. His government recently declared Russia a threat to Hungary's national security.
Now we have witnessed the new government's strictest measure against Russia's policy so far: on Tuesday (September 8, 2026), the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs expelled ten Russian diplomats for "violating the provisions of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations". Such a formulation usually means that the diplomats in question are spies and collaborators of the secret services.
On Facebook, Hungarian Foreign Minister Anita Orbán (who is not related to the former prime minister) wrote that the decision protects Hungary's security and sovereignty, while clarifying that this does not mean a break in diplomatic relations. Hungary wants to "continue to maintain the necessary dialogue, mutual respect and compliance with the rules", the minister assured.
Back to allies
In practice, the expulsion of the diplomats represents one of the strictest diplomatic sanctions against Moscow since the changes in Hungary in 1989/90 and confirmation of the 180-degree turn in the country's policy towards Russia. Or as intelligence expert Peter Tarjani puts it, "this is not a diplomatic conflict, but a serious intelligence issue". At the same time, Hungary is returning to the "mainstream of security policy" of its allies, he added.
András Ratz, a political scientist, leading Hungarian expert on Russia and deputy director of the Hungarian Foreign Policy Institute (MKI), told state news agency MTI that Hungary is the only EU and NATO member state that has not seen such expulsions in recent years. He believes that such a step should have been taken four and a half years ago. Now, "Hungary is paying off its old debt to its EU and NATO allies," Ratz added.
An absurd rapprochement with Russia
In fact, Hungary under Viktor Orbán was the only EU country that never unreservedly condemned Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine. In the last two years of his rule, the autocrat Orbán even blamed Ukraine and the West for the aggression.
But long before that, immediately after coming to power in 2010, Viktor Orbán pursued a strongly pro-Russian policy. He justified this, among other things, by the fact that Hungary, like almost no other country in the region, is dependent on Russian energy supplies. The claim that Russian gas is cheaper - as Orbán's government has repeatedly claimed - has long been refuted. The expansion of the Paks nuclear power plant with Russian assistance will also cost Hungary dearly in the coming decades. Therefore, many of Orbán's pro-Russian attitudes remain a mystery.
For Hungary, this closeness to Russia often led to absurd situations in which national security was threatened, while at the same time Orbán constantly emphasized that it was his critics who violated Hungary's sovereignty. For example, until 2016, Russian secret service officers participated for years in military exercises with demonstrations of martial arts in the far-right Hungarian movement without hindrance. Since 2012, Russian secret services have been practically stealing massive amounts of data from the Hungarian Foreign Ministry and other Hungarian departments, without the government publicly protesting.
In 2019, Russia was allowed to move the headquarters of the International Investment Bank (IIB), known as the "spy bank", to Budapest. It was only after the imposition of sanctions by the US in 2023 that it was withdrawn again. Overall, as investigative journalist Szabolcs Pani has repeatedly warned in recent years, Hungary has become a "logistics center and deployment zone for Russian secret services", thus putting the entire region at risk.
Discontent among many Hungarians
Orbán's strongly pro-Russian course ultimately caused increasing discontent among many Hungarians. Péter Magyar's clearly pro-European and pro-Western orientation contributed significantly to the electoral victory of his "Tisza" party. During the election campaign in the spring of 2026, the European flag was often seen at rallies and the spontaneous slogan: "Russians, go home!" was often heard.
Unlike Viktor Orbán, Magyar and the leading politicians from his party are convinced that Hungary's place is entirely in Europe and that only pragmatic relations at a relatively low level should be maintained with Russia.
However, many observers and experts are surprised by how radically Magyar's government is now distancing itself from Russia. The former deputy head of the Information Service IH (Hungary's domestic intelligence service), András Telkes, wrote on this occasion in the newspaper "Nepsava" that the expulsion of the diplomats shows how widespread the presence of Russian intelligence services in Hungary really is, and that the country has a serious problem.
According to Telkes, the expulsion of ten diplomats contributes to restoring trust in Hungary among allied intelligence services. At the same time, he noted: "The expulsion of two or three people would be a signal. The expulsion of ten people already means war." And this creates a serious problem for Hungary's security.
Will Moscow stop gas supplies?
The spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry condemned the expulsion of Russian diplomats from Hungary with unusual severity. She spoke of the "Russophobic lobby in Budapest" and announced that a "firm and painful" response would follow. Russian MP Andrei Kolesnik, a member of the State Duma defense committee, said that consideration should also be given to stopping gas supplies to Hungary.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Anita Orbán knows such Russian attempts at blackmail better than anyone else in the new Hungarian government: in 2007 she defended her doctoral dissertation on the topic of Russian energy policy in Central Europe, and in 2008 her book was published with the title: "Power, Energy and the New Russian Imperialism".