Ukraine Uncovers Hungarian Spy Network Targeting Military Defenses
KYIV – Ukraine's main security agency has reported the discovery of a Hungariarun spying network that sought sensitive information regarding military defenses and public sentiment in the Zakarpattya region, which borders Hungary and has a significant ethnic-Hungarian population. The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) announced on May 9 that it had arrested two suspected spies in Zakarpattya, also known in English as Transcarpathia, identifying their handler as an employee of Hungarian military intelligence. This marks the first occasion in which Ukraine has uncovered a Hungarian espionage network aimed at undermining its security, according to the SBU.
This revelation occurs amid escalating tensions between Ukraine and Hungary, where Prime Minister Viktor Orban has maintained a close relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, opposing sanctions against the Kremlin despite the ongoing war in Ukraine. Hungary has demonstrated considerably less support for Ukraine’s defense initiatives than most other nations within the European Union and NATO.
The reported activities of the spy network coincide with a complicated backdrop in Zakarpattya, where critics of the Kremlin assert that Russia has been attempting to fuel discord between ethnic Hungarians and the Ukrainian government. The network's objectives reportedly included gathering intelligence on the military defenses of the Zakarpattya Oblast, identifying weaknesses in the region's ground and air defenses, and assessing the sociopolitical attitudes of local residents, particularly regarding potential responses to a possible incursion by Hungarian forces, as stated by the SBU.
One of the apprehended suspects, a 40-year-old former soldier from Berehove, a major center for Ukraine's ethnic Hungarian demographic of around 100,000, was allegedly recruited and activated by the purported handler in September 2024 after being placed in a sleeper mode in 2021. The SBU claims to possess documentary evidence proving that this suspect was involved in gathering location data on Ukrainian air defense systems along with other military capabilities. The second detained suspect, a woman and former member of Ukraine’s Security and Defense Forces, had recently resigned from her unit earlier this year. The identities of the suspects have not been disclosed, and there has been no response from Hungarian officials.
Historically, Zakarpattya has shifted under various powers; after centuries under Hungarian rule and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the region became part of Czechoslovakia post-World War I. Hungary, allied with Nazi Germany, attempted to reclaim Zakarpattya in 1939. Following Germany's defeat in World War II, Czechoslovakia ceded the territory to the Soviet Union, integrating it within the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.
From 2011 to 2020, the Hungarian government provided approximately 115 million euros to Zakarpattya, as revealed by a 2021 investigation by RFERL's Ukrainian investigative unit Schemes along with a consortium of Central European journalists. This sum represented roughly 1.12 times the annual budget of Zakarpattya, heightening concerns over foreign influence in this ethnically diverse region.
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