The Russians are Already in the Ministry’s Pantry

In the latest episode about the relationship of Russia and its most intimate EU-ally.

We are in Hungary, in March 2022: a few weeks after Russia launched its full-scale attack on Ukraine, and only a few weeks before the Hungarian parliamentary elections. At this time the Orbán government could take full advantage of the ongoing war in its neighbouring country during the election campaign by framing themselves as the only advocators of peace and security willing and capable of protecting its citizens in contrast to the “pro-war left/opposition”.

In general, the centre of the campaign fundamentally changed following late February and was thematized by the war. At this time, in early 2022, an investigative article revealed that Russian intelligence agencies began a comprehensive attack towards the computer network of the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and got access to highly confidential diplomatic and state secrets information. When these attacks exactly started is not clear, but as described, the Russian intelligence agencies “have been continuously attacking Hungarian government networks for at least a decade”, and “Hungarian diplomacy has become practically an open book for Moscow through the hacking of the ministry’s networks”. In the tense campaign situation of 2022 spring, such news would not get much attention or cause a scandal. Especially, as the ministry and members of the Fidesz-party would dismiss the issue given that they “don’t deal with campaign lies”. Admitting the events would have been problematic for two reasons: first, the government was not capable of protecting the country and was compromised. But second, and more importantly, the attack came from that Russia whose narrative Orbán and his government would amplify during the war – a country, which has long been portrayed as a distinguished partner of Hungary in many fronts, including the fight for traditional values and national sovereignty against aspirations of the liberal Western elite.

It was in mid-May of 2024, that a Hungarian newspaper, 444.hu, acquired internal documents proving that the ministry was well aware of the happenings. Well, the good news is that the ministry did know that it was being hacked. The bad news is, that the ministry did know that it was being hacked – and lied about it. As the papers show, denouncing cyberattacks as fake news, or that the ministry would not have knowledge of it, was untrue. Papers, available on the internet, show the content of the report that the National Security Special Service made to the Hungarian Foreign Ministry in September 2021 about the state of its IT networks. This, in summary, would include: more than 4000 workstation and above 930 servers were compromised and become unreliable, including administrator accounts with the highest level of authorisation, and hackers had gained full access to mailings, files, and all kinds of personal and sensitive information about the employees of the ministry for years - altogether causing irreparable damage to the system. At some point Hungarian intelligence agents serving under foreign ambassies’ cover could not use the network’s internal correspondence – showing how well-known the fact of the attacks was. It is clear from the papers that these cyberattacks would be launched by Russian agencies, namely the GRU, FSB and/or SVR.

Luckily, the confrontation of the minister with named documents a few days later was recorded for the posterity; the initial surprise – or panic - is obvious, and the journalist is immediately challenged with the question of how could he obtain such documents. The rest of the response is a mix of repeated rejection of further answering referring to national security interests and clear presumption of the involvement of foreign – Western – security agencies as actors helping in the acquisition of the document. All this topped with the irrevocable argument against the paper and the journalist of “… but this has not been written for you, has it?”. Strangely, this case would compel the minister to engage in more interaction with non-state affiliated press than maybe ever before.

Of course, such cyberattacks are not unmatched, in or outside of the European Union, conducted by Russia or by other states. Also, how the government would react to such exposures is more just domestic politics of a country. But many, rightly, draw the attention to an event long has been discussed after the outbreak of the war: on 30th of December 2021 the Hungarian foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, travelled to Moscow to receive the Russian Order of Friendship, the highest distinction a foreigner can get in Russia, from Sergei Lavrov. Knowing well that his ministry’ IT network was still under Russian attack even at that time. But, the honour was earned, and this case would properly represent the relations not just of the countries, but maybe even more of the two ministers, which seemingly was little affected by a war: since February 2022 Szijjártó would often travel to Russia to discuss energy matters – and occasionally to ask for an increase in gas supplies -, to attend different forums, or would meet his counterpart during international events in other countries, usually being the only colleague from the EU in Lavrov’s company. It would happen that a dinner of the two spent in a joyful mood would coincide to take place the same day as the burial of the most prominent actor of the Russian opposition. Of course, such an occasion is everything but anoutlier and fits perfectly into the politics of a government whose only remark about Navalny’s death would be a brief cynical comment.

Afterall, it’s not the event of a Russian cyberattack being something novel, but the lack of any consequence or diplomatic response intended to demonstrate at least some level of objection or deterrence towards Russia coming from the Hungarian side. Other members of the EU/NATO-alliance – the USA, the UK, Poland, or most recently, the Czech Republic -have a history of expelling diplomats and/or introducing sanctions towards Russia, but at the very least making public statements of condemnation towards the attacks and their initiators in similar cases. He may not have vast experience in expulsions, but the Hungarian foreign minister is certainly a practiced of summoning ambassadors – the Foreign Ministry has a lengthy record of finding quite diverse and quirky excuses to organize meetings with foreign countries’ representatives, bearing significance of way smaller orders of magnitude than a comprehensive cyberattack towards the country’s diplomatic computer network. The Russian ambassador is among those yet to receive an invitation like that; actually, in the spring of 2022, it was his Ukrainian counterpart who had the luck to visit the Ministry. This case is one element of a bigger story, which makes some analysts to conclude that the Hungarian foreign policy is subordinated to the Russian strategic objectives. The hypothesis, which says that this attack was in fact a deliberate information exchange, probably remains a theoretical assumption – for now at least. But such a premise comes maybe by no surprise in the light of the total absence of any kind of response from a government which identifies sovereignty as one of its key priorities and uses the fight for it as a tool of legitimation.

In the end, maybe it’s the compelling force of the medal – that order will certainly pass the test of all challenges of a friendship.