While the specific events are unprecedented, the underlying tensions, motives and mutual suspicions have been simmering for years.
Ukraine detains suspected Hungarian spies
On the morning of May 9, Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) announced the arrest of two individuals accused of spying for Hungarian intelligence.
According to the SBU, the pair were collecting classified information for Budapest, including the deployment, movements and armaments of Ukrainian forces, as well as similar data on law enforcement units.
Most notably, they were allegedly tasked with gauging public and military sentiment—hypothetically in preparation for the arrival of a peacekeeping force, specifically a Hungarian one.
One of the suspects was reportedly recruited back in 2021, later placed on standby, and reactivated in September last year.
The second was a female veteran of the Ukrainian armed forces who had served in a military unit in the Transcarpathian region earlier this year.
Hungary vehemently denied the allegations and swiftly expelled two Ukrainian diplomats. Kyiv responded in kind. Budapest then went a step further by expelling a third Ukrainian envoy—albeit a former one.
Hungarian intelligence operations in Transcarpathia, while provocative, are not entirely surprising. After all, intelligence services exist to uncover and collect information that is not publicly available.
The region in question—bordering Hungary and part of the Hungarian Crown for nearly a thousand years until it was annexed by Soviet Ukraine in 1945—is home to tens of thousands of ethnic Hungarians.
Most speak Hungarian and benefit from generous financial support from Budapest.
Why now?
What makes this case unusual is the public way in which Kyiv revealed the operation and the alleged objectives.
With sufficient political will, such matters are typically handled quietly through diplomatic channels. Making them public, however, signals an intention to discredit the foreign power involved. The question is: why now?
The charges levelled suggest that Kyiv believes—or at least wants others to believe—that Budapest is entertaining the idea of a military intervention in Transcarpathia.
This is not a new concern in Ukrainian political discourse. Rumours circulated after Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022 that Hungarian troops had approached the Transcarpathian border in the chaos of the war’s early days.
To this day, it remains unclear whether those manoeuvres were routine defensive measures or a contingency plan in case Ukraine failed to repel Russia.
These anxieties are rooted in a broader context: Hungary’s fixation on its diaspora, shaped by the historic trauma of the Treaty of Trianon, and its increasingly antagonistic policy toward Kyiv.
This includes maintaining ties with Moscow, obstructing EU aid and sanctions packages designed to support Ukraine, and blocking Ukraine’s EU accession talks.
Bilateral relations have been frosty since 2017, when Ukraine’s parliament passed a new education law mandating that more subjects be taught in Ukrainian.
While this did restrict minority language rights—including for Hungarians—it was also a legitimate effort to ensure all Ukrainian citizens, including minorities, have adequate command of the state language.
In Transcarpathia, Ukrainian proficiency—especially among the older generation—has often been minimal.
Budapest has since demanded a full restoration of the linguistic rights that existed before 2014, when a highly permissive language law, passed under pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych, allowed widespread use of minority tongues, particularly Russian.
Hungary blocking Ukraine’s EU ambitions
Although Kyiv has made considerable concessions, including amending the 2017 law, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government continues to escalate its demands, suggesting it is less interested in compromise than in using the issue to obstruct Ukraine’s European ambitions.
The current standoff centres on whether the EU will open the first “negotiation cluster” in Ukraine’s accession process.
Hungary has blocked the vote, and EU enlargement requires unanimity.
There are now concerns that Ukraine may be decoupled from Moldova, its fellow candidate country, against which Budapest has raised no objections.
Such a move could leave Ukraine languishing in the EU's waiting room—especially if Orbán, who faces elections next year, secures another term.
Attempt to undermine Budapest's credibility?
Kyiv’s decision to publicly expose Hungarian espionage activities appears to be a calculated attempt to undermine Budapest's credibility among EU partners.
The goal is to shift the narrative: from Hungary’s supposed defence of ethnic kin, to a more sinister agenda of capitalising on Ukraine’s potential defeat to Russia.
Casting Orbán as a Kremlin enabler may also galvanise European leaders to adopt a tougher stance and seek creative ways to bypass Hungary’s veto—unlocking Ukraine’s stalled EU path.
Tadeusz Iwański
The author is head of the Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova department at the Centre for Eastern Studies (OSW), a Warsaw-based think tank. From 2006 to 2011, he worked at Polskie Radio dla Zagranicy, the Polish public broadcaster's international service.