Goulash: Hungarian Intel, Russian Airstrike; GRU Travel Agency for Fico’s Allies

FRESH FROM VSQUARE

THE GRU’S TRAVEL AGENT: SLUTSKY ARRANGED MOSCOW TRIP FOR ROBERT FICO’S ADVISORPRO-ORBÁN PROPAGANDIST’S TIES TO RUSSIAN INTELLIGENCE EXPOSED

Robert Fico’s legal fixer, David Lindtner, had never dabbled in Russian affairs—until he popped up in Moscow this spring, looking very much like a man on someone else’s itinerary. As our investigation with ICJK reveals, his trip was arranged by Leonid Slutsky, the “James Bond-like” Russian politician who runs the so-called Russian Peace Foundation—a group that reports its guest lists and their personal data straight to the GRU’s European espionage department. Slutsky was even “romantically involved” with a GRU spy, and one of his Duma colleagues in the LDPR faction is none other than Andrey Lugovoy—aka the guy wanted for serving the cup of radioactive tea that killed Alexander Litvinenko in London. Slutsky has long played the role of Kremlin gatekeeper, famously arranging French far-right leader Marine Le Pen’s 2017 visit and receiving awards from Vladimir Putin for his efforts. As for David Lindtner—his Slovak allies claim he went to Moscow to discuss the rule of law, while Slutsky’s letter said the purpose was to talk about humanitarian projects. When we asked questions, both men went silent. And I strongly suspect neither explanation is entirely convincing. Here’s the longer English version on VSquare, and here’s the Slovak version on ICJK, authored by Nikita Hava, Tomáš Madleňák, and me.

CRIME, KREMLIN, AND KARLOVY VARY: INSIDE A HIDDEN WEB OF INFLUENCE

Asmat Shanava, owner of the Pirosmani restaurant in Karlovy Vary, is an indispensable figure for both Russian organized crime and the Russian state. She works as an intermediary, securing payments, setting up companies, and coordinating meetings. She arrived in Karlovy Vary with her husband in the late 1990s. He died shortly afterwards. However, Asmat Shanava stayed and expanded her connections to include the mayor of Karlovy Vary. Russian citizen Alexandr Franchetti also contacted her for help. When Franchetti was arrested in Prague in 2021 on suspicion of forming an armed group during the annexation of Crimea, he urgently sought someone to pay his lawyers for his defense. This compilation of two stories from the Czech Republic is a part of the “Dear Compatriots” investigative series into Pravfond, a Russian intelligence-linked foundation financing influence operations abroad.

You can read this next part of the joint investigation based on almost 50,000 leaked emails in English here and in Czech here and here (authors: Investigace.cz’s Kristina Vejnbender and Pavla Holcová.) And in case you missed it, we already published an overview of the foundation’s activities in Europe here, and an investigation into Pravfond’s operations in Poland here.)

SPICY SCOOPS

There is always a lot of information that we hear and find interesting and newsworthy but don’t publish as part of our investigative reporting — and share instead in this newsletter. 

HUNGARIAN STATE-OWNED MILITARY INDUSTRY SOLD TO ORBÁN-ALLIED COMPANY JUST WEEKS BEFORE NATO SUMMIT

At NATO’s June 24-25 summit in The Hague, member states agreed to more than double their defense spending target—from 2% to 5% of GDP by 2035—further boosting the booming European defense industry. While the 2035 deadline is still distant, and many NATO members haven’t even hit the current 2% mark, the shift signals the dawn of a new golden era for arms manufacturers. Notably, only 3.5% of that 5% will actually need to go toward core defense spending. Still, the projected profits for shareholders are massive. That context makes a recent decision by Hungary’s government all the more surprising. Just two weeks before the NATO summit, on June 11, Hungary’s Ministry for National Economy and 4iG—a state-backed but formally private tech and communications giant—announced the “privatization” of Hungary’s state-owned military industry. “In reality, this isn’t privatization,” a well-connected Hungarian business source told me. “There was no tender, no public debate, no review of alternatives—just a handover of state assets to a company closely tied to Orbán.” Under the deal, 4iG acquires a 75% stake in the state’s military holding company, N7 Defence Plc, while the Hungarian state retains only 25%. As Direkt36’s previous investigations have shown, 4iG is so close to Viktor Orbán that he personally negotiated on their behalf in at least one international deal—despite having no official role in the company. 

“This transfer just weeks before NATO raised the defense spending goal also raises theoretical questions of insider trading,” the business source added. But this isn’t a typical case of insider trading—if anything, it’s the reverse. The government, fully aware that it would soon commit to massive new defense spending, gave away the profits that should have gone to the state. Instead of keeping both hands on the money—spending taxpayer funds on the military and earning returns from state-owned defense firms—it handed over the benefit to 4iG, a private player with close ties to Orbán. Back in March, a well-connected Hungarian national security expert already told me that 4iG and its CEO, Gellért Jászai, were poised to become major players in the defense sector—and to serve as the international business face of Orbán’s inner circle. “Orbán knows the next decade’s big money is in defense,” the source said. “If he wins the 2026 election, we’ll see the rise of the businessman-like, internationally presentable Jászai and 4iG—and the decline of Lőrinc Mészáros, who barely speaks any foreign languages and is completely incapable of convincing anyone abroad that he’s not just a front,” the source said, referring to Hungary’s richest businessman, widely accused by the opposition of being “Orbán’s wallet” and the prime minister’s current financial frontman.

UKRAINIAN SUSPICIONS LINK A RARE RUSSIAN AIRSTRIKE TO HUNGARY’S EXPOSED MILITARY INTELLIGENCE OPERATION IN TRANSCARPATHIA

Transcarpathia, Ukraine’s westernmost region, has largely been spared from Russian attacks—after a missile strike in spring 2022, the next missile and drone strike happened on November 17, 2024. (You can read more about life there in this recent New York Times piece.) During the November strike, Russian forces likely targeted an electrical substation near Mukachevo (Hungarian: Munkács), which plays a key role in importing electricity from the European Union. Although the air attack in the region failed, the precision of the target suggests the Russians had solid intelligence on what to hit. According to a source familiar with Ukrainian-Hungarian relations and briefed by Ukrainian authorities, some officials in Kyiv suspect there may be more than mere coincidence between this rare Russian strike and the activities of recently exposed Hungarian military intelligence agents. Ukraine’s counterintelligence agency, the SBU, published a video and statement on May 9, 2025, announcing that they had uncovered a Hungarian military intelligence network.

As we previously reported, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently directly addressed Hungary’s military intelligence agency, the KNBSZ, in his first-ever interview with Hungarian media (Válasz Online)—saying that the SBU had collected extensive evidence of their operations in Ukraine, including that they gathered intel on air defense systems and military vulnerabilities in Transcarpathia. The same source familiar with Ukrainian-Hungarian relations told me that the November 2024 airstrike may have been a key reason Ukraine’s SBU decided, after a lengthy investigation, to publicly release the video showing the arrest of the two KNBSZ agents. Of course, in the world of espionage—where smoke and mirrors are the norm—it’s always possible that these are disinformation efforts or provocations by Ukraine’s SBU. Still, what is also troubling is the total silence from the Orbán government and the KNBSZ, who have offered no explanation for what their agents were actually doing in Transcarpathia. While Zelensky hinted that the KNBSZ agents may have been gathering intelligence not for Hungary but for a third party outside NATO, no explicit public accusations have so far linked the KNBSZ operation to Russia.

ORBÁN’S PRIDE MARCH BAN SEEMS TO BE BACKFIRING BIG TIME

As fresh Hungarian polls continue to show Viktor Orbán’s supporters defecting to opposition leader Péter Magyar’s moderate right-wing Tisza party (according to a recent Medián poll, Tisza leads Fidesz 51 to 36% ), the prime minister’s latest attempt to stop the bleeding isn’t working. Orbán’s new “child protection” legislation—which effectively paved the way for banning the Budapest Pride march—was, according to political commentators, designed to bait Magyar and Tisza into defending the event, so they could be labeled as “liberals.” The hope was that disillusioned right-wing Fidesz voters would then stay put. But Magyar didn’t fall for the trap. Instead, he has kept setting his own agenda, focusing on inflation, poverty, crumbling infrastructure, and Hungary’s deteriorating health care system. As a result, the Pride ban has become not only politically obsolete for Orbán, but an increasing liability. As the June 28 march approaches, the Orbán government is left with two bad options: either deploy police force to disperse the crowd and risk sparking unrest and mass protest—or allow the march to proceed peacefully, signaling weakness and the accelerating erosion of a regime that barks more than it bites.

From a legal perspective, here’s where things currently stand: On June 28, Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony and the Budapest municipality are organizing a city event ostensibly reviving a tradition of “celebrating Hungarian freedom.” They are calling this event for Hungarian freedom Budapest Pride—just like the annual public gathering celebrating LGBTQ rights, which had been banned by Hungarian police following the Orbán government’s legislation. In short: the opposition-led city leadership has found a legal loophole. Since this is a city event organized at their discretion, it is not classified as a public gathering or protest. That means the government’s ban doesn’t apply, and Hungarian police do not need to approve it. What complicates matters is that the fuming Orbán government refuses to accept this legal workaround. Police have issued a ban on the event—even though the organizers never applied for a permit. The stage is set not only for a legal battle, but, in theory, also for a possible standoff between unarmed citizens, police, and some neo-fascist protesters. However, according to a source familiar with organizing the city’s Pride event, Interior Minister Sándor Pintér, an old-school police officer, is said to be firmly opposed to the idea of dispersing the crowd. Instead, he suggested issuing serious fines to those participating.

Meanwhile, thousands of foreigners—including more than 70 MEPs and dozens of foreign mayors, deputy mayors, MPs, government officials, and diplomats—have signaled that they will be in attendance. According to multiple foreign government officials and sources familiar with the organization of Budapest Pride, Hungarian police seem to be particularly nervous about the large number of protected foreign dignitaries, as police have to protect them—despite their participation in an “illegal” event. At the same time, the presence of foreign politicians and officials is seen as an important protective umbrella, reducing the likelihood of the march being stopped by either far-right protesters or the police. In the current Hungarian political climate, however, all of my sources agreed that they expect Orbán to reluctantly choose appearing weak over risking violence. They believe Hungarian police will be ordered to let the march proceed, and possibly issue strict fines afterward. “I always refrain from using such expressions, but if there’s escalation and trouble, it could truly contribute to the demise of the government,” a source familiar with the Pride’s organization told me, referring to the Orbán government’s declining popularity and growing public frustration.

MORE FROM OUR PARTNERS

WHO IS DAVID LINDTNER? FICO’S ADVISER, KOČNER’S CONTACT, INDICTED EX-JUDGE, LAWYER, MEMBER OF THE STVR COUNCIL… ICJK’s article provides an in-depth profile of David Lindtner, a close aide to Prime Minister Robert Fico, detailing how he became entangled in corruption scandals. (Text in Slovak.)

AN UNPRECEDENTED LOOK AT HOW HUNGARY’S HEALTHCARE SYSTEM IS FALLING APART. The Orbán government is trying to hide the problems facing Hungarian hospitals, but journalists at Direkt36 used artificial intelligence to analyze over a thousand official documents—revealing a devastating picture of the daily struggles healthcare workers endure. This is the first part of Direkt36’s investigative series into Hungarian healthcare. (Text in Hungarian and English.)

“IF THEY OPERATED HER THEN, SHE MIGHT HAVE SURVIVED.” In the second part of the same series, Direkt36 tells the story of a deceased pregnant woman to illustrate the deterioration of Hungarian healthcare. (Text in Hungarian and English.)

RUSSIA WARNS OF UKRAINIAN SCAMMERS, HUNGARIAN GOVERNMENT BANDWAGONS. Átlátszó explains how Vladimir Putin’s warning about Ukrainian scammers has inspired Orbán’s government and media to launch a similar fear campaign, suddenly portraying it as a major issue in Hungary beginning in late May. (Text in Hungarian and English.)

TELEGRAM, FSB, AND THE MAN IN THE MIDDLE. Investigace.cz’s article explains how journalists from IStories have discovered that the technical infrastructure supporting Telegram is controlled by a man whose companies cooperate with Russian intelligence services. (Text in Czech and in English on OCCRP’s site.)

This was VSquare’s 45th Goulash newsletter. I hope you gobbled it up. Come back soon for another serving. 

Still hungry? Check the previous newsletter issues here! 

SZABOLCS PANYI & THE VSQUARE TEAM