Hungary continues to conduct intelligence operations on Ukrainian territory, sharing information with Russia and preparing provocations in the Kremlin’s interest.
On the morning of Sept. 26, Ukrainian Armed Forces radar systems, operating at multiple altitudes, tracked two overflights by an unmanned aerial vehicle across Zakarpattia (Transcarpathia). The drone twice violated Ukraine’s state border from the direction of Hungary. The UAV may have been scouting industrial capacity in Ukraine’s border districts. This appears to corroborate our assessment that Budapest, through its military intelligence service, is collecting data on the defensive potential of western Ukraine for subsequent transfer to Moscow. We are convinced the airspace violations were conceptually linked to recent incursions by Russian drones into Poland; the objective is to probe Ukrainian air-defense coverage in the region. That aligns with the remit of a Hungarian military intelligence agent network exposed by Ukrainian counterintelligence earlier this year.
There is a high probability that Budapest is identifying targets within Zakarpattia’s energy infrastructure as retaliation for Ukrainian strikes on Russia’s Druzhba oil pipeline—attacks that, according to Hungary’s Foreign Ministry, reduced Hungary’s budget revenues by $1–1.5 billion. In this scenario, Budapest could resort to sabotage to pressure Kyiv and the European Union to soften policy on Russian energy. Another possibility is that Hungary is mapping western Ukraine’s air defenses to pass the data to Russia for follow-on strikes by Russian attack drones. We also do not exclude that Moscow could exploit identified vulnerabilities to reprise the “Polish scenario”: staging an intrusion into Hungarian territory while accusing Ukraine of a deliberate provocation. In that event, the Kremlin—via the Orbán government—could demand that NATO curtail assistance to Ukraine, including air-defense systems.
There are ample grounds to believe the Kremlin and Budapest are acting in concert to weaken Ukraine and lay conditions for the seizure of a western Ukrainian province as part of an “imperial revival” of the Hungarian state. This conclusion is reinforced by reports of Hungarian troop concentrations on the day of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. The Orbán government’s close coordination with the Kremlin, according to these assessments, includes understandings over potential territorial concessions in western Ukraine should Russian forces capture Kyiv.
More on this story: Peacekeeper or Invader? Hungarian Forces and the Future of Western Ukraine
