March 21, 2026
The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (FTZ) proposed to stage an assassination attempt on Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban to increase his chances of winning the parliamentary elections in April. This was reported by The Washington Post on March 21.
WP got acquainted with the internal report of the SZR, which was obtained by European intelligence.
According to the publication, last month, the SZR unit began to sound the alarm due to a sharp drop in public support for Orban.
Intelligence officers proposed a possible radical action, which they called Gamechanger ("change the rules of the game"). The SWR report, according to WP, contained a proposal to "radically change the paradigm of the election campaign" by imitating an assassination attempt on Orban.
According to their plan, such an incident would translate the election campaign on rational socio-economic issues into an emotional plane, where the main topics would be state security and the stability of the political system.
As of now, there have been no attempts on Orban, but the very fact of the appearance of such a proposal emphasizes how high the stakes are for Russia in the Hungarian elections, the media indicate.
According to polls, Orban is inferior to the head of the opposition party "Tisa" Peter Madyar, who positions himself as an anti-corruption reformer. The majority of citizens (52.3%) are dissatisfied with the situation in the country, including in traditionally pro-government rural regions.
Western officials believe that the Kremlin seeks to keep Orban in power because he helps block the main decisions of the EU and is a bridge between Moscow and part of the political forces in the United States.
Orban's spokesman Zoltan Kovac did not respond to journalists' request for comment on the SZR report. For his part, Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for the illegitimate Russian President Vladimir Putin, called the material "disinformation."
March 21, 2026
The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (FTZ) proposed to stage an assassination attempt on Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban to increase his chances of winning the parliamentary elections in April. This was reported by The Washington Post on March 21.
WP got acquainted with the internal report of the SZR, which was obtained by European intelligence.
According to the publication, last month, the SZR unit began to sound the alarm due to a sharp drop in public support for Orban.
Intelligence officers proposed a possible radical action, which they called Gamechanger ("change the rules of the game"). The SWR report, according to WP, contained a proposal to "radically change the paradigm of the election campaign" by imitating an assassination attempt on Orban.
According to their plan, such an incident would translate the election campaign on rational socio-economic issues into an emotional plane, where the main topics would be state security and the stability of the political system.
As of now, there have been no attempts on Orban, but the very fact of the appearance of such a proposal emphasizes how high the stakes are for Russia in the Hungarian elections, the media indicate.
According to polls, Orban is inferior to the head of the opposition party "Tisa" Peter Madyar, who positions himself as an anti-corruption reformer. The majority of citizens (52.3%) are dissatisfied with the situation in the country, including in traditionally pro-government rural regions.
Western officials believe that the Kremlin seeks to keep Orban in power because he helps block the main decisions of the EU and is a bridge between Moscow and part of the political forces in the United States.
Orban's spokesman Zoltan Kovac did not respond to journalists' request for comment on the SZR report. For his part, Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for the illegitimate Russian President Vladimir Putin, called the material "disinformation."
