Kyiv is silent about 2 Hungarian diplomats over spy scandal

Ukraine distributed two Hungarian diplomats on Friday evening after the Ukrainian secret service had broken up a Hungarian spyering, which was supposed to prepare for a potential invasion in West Ukraine earlier on the same day.

“Two Hungarian diplomats have to leave our country within 48 hours. We have just called a Hungarian ambassador [the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine] And introduced him to the relevant note, ”said Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha on X.

“We are about Hungary's actions based on the principle of mutuality and our national interests,” he added, and today referred to a similar step when Budapest excluded two Ukrainian diplomats after the espionage incident.

On Friday afternoon, the Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto announced the decision in a Facebook video and accused the diplomats as “spies who worked in the Ukrainian embassy in Budapest” and refused Kyiv's allegations.

What happened?

On Friday, the Ukraine Security Service (SBU) said that Budapests National Military Intelligence Agency had a secret espionage network in western Ukraine with the mission to determine the level of local support for a possible invasion by Hungarian troops.

The SBU arrested two suspects who were supposedly commissioned to collect sensitive information about the AFU installations and units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), follow local officials and to build and expand a local agent network.

The two prisoners – a man and a woman – were reportedly monitored by a Hungarian intelligence officer. Both are exposed to lifelong detention.

The SBU spokesman Artem Dekhtaryenko said that the arrests were the first time that the Ukrainian espionage defense broke out a spy ring from a NATO state.