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Hungary Expels 10 Russian Diplomats, Signaling a Shift
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The housecleaning puts the new government more in line with how European allies relate to Moscow, tempering cozy ties developed under Viktor Orban’s administration.
Listen · 6:31 minA new government in Hungary formed after the election defeat of the country’s Russia-friendly former prime minister, Viktor Orban, ordered the expulsion of 10 Russian diplomats on Tuesday, signaling a sharp turn away from previously cozy relations with Moscow.
Hungary’s foreign minister, Anita Orban, said without elaborating that the diplomats had been told to leave because they had “engaged in activities in Hungary that are unacceptable for diplomats under the Vienna Convention.”
The 1961 convention requires diplomats not to “interfere in the internal affairs” of their host country, something Hungary’s opposition and news media repeatedly accused Russian diplomats of doing, while Mr. Orban turned a blind eye, during his 16-year tenure as prime minister beginning in 2010.
When Szabolcs Panyi, a prominent investigative journalist, wrote articles describing dirty-trick operations in Hungary by Russian intelligence agencies operating out of the Budapest embassy, Mr. Orban’s government responded by opening an espionage case against the journalist and took no action to curtail Russian diplomats.
The case against Mr. Panyi, who in March published the transcript of a phone conversation between the Hungarian and Russian foreign ministers in which the Hungarian sounds obsequiously fawning, was later dropped.
On Tuesday, shortly after Hungary announced the diplomats’ expulsion, Romania, a member of NATO and the European Union like Hungary, said that it had foiled a planned sabotage operation on its territory and detained a Russian citizen connected to it. NATO’s eastern flank has been frazzled in recent months by a wave of mysterious fires and other apparent sabotage actions officials have blamed on Russia.
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