Journalists released audio recordings that suggest Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó showed willingness to comply with requests from the Russian side.
VSquare reported this, citing recordings of conversations between Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Péter Szijjártó.
Details
According to the published materials, Szijjártó received a phone call from Lavrov about an hour after arriving in St. Petersburg in August 2024. Lavrov contacted him with a reminder regarding sanctions against the sister of Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov:
“Listen, I’m calling at Alisher’s request, and he just asked me to remind you that you are doing something regarding his sister.”
The Hungarian minister confirmed his readiness to act:
“Yes, of course.”
He also clarified that he had already been preparing a relevant initiative:
“The thing is, together with the Slovaks, we are submitting a proposal to the European Union to remove her from the list. We will submit it next week, and since a new review period will begin, the issue will be placed on the agenda, and we will do everything possible to have her removed.”
Before ending the call, Szijjártó added:
“I am always at your disposal.”
Later, the EU did remove Gulbakhor Ismailova from the sanctions list. One European intelligence officer commented:
“If you remove the names and show these conversations to any operative, they will swear this is a transcript of a conversation between an intelligence officer and their source.”
Context
Earlier reports said that Szijjártó had passed information about EU discussions to the Russian side. Against this backdrop, concerns about leaks have grown within the EU, and officials have partially excluded Hungary from sensitive negotiations.
In addition, during recent sanctions discussions, Hungary and Slovakia tried to secure the removal of other Russian businessmen from EU lists, though not all attempts succeeded.
Previously The Ukrainian Review reported that EU leaders criticized Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán during the March summit in Brussels.
