Goulash: Orbán’s Strategists Aid a Struggling Fico; Hungary & the Covid Lab Leak Theory

FRESH FROM VSQUARE

MEET SLOVAKIA’S MOST TOXIC PROPAGANDIST: AN INDICTED EXTREMIST LOVED BY FICO AND HIS ALLIES

Daniel Bombic, better known online as Danny Kollár, is one of Slovakia’s most notorious far-right extremists—and he’s finally back in the country to face justice. Bombic, who ran Slovakia’s most influential hate-fueled Telegram channel, was extradited from the United Kingdom on January 28 after being wanted under three international arrest warrants. He now faces eight charges, including for persecution, defamation, electronic harassment, and spreading extremism. An Investigative Center of Ján Kuciak (ICJK) analysis by talented young journalists Karolína Kiripolská, Petra Pavlovičová and Matej Kyjovský reveals just how deep his influence runs. Bombic’s Telegram is a cesspool of racism, homophobia, neo-Nazi rhetoric, and incitement to violence. Yet despite this, or maybe precisely because of it, he’s rubbed shoulders with Slovakia’s political elite. His channel has even hosted discussions with top government officials, including Prime Minister Robert Fico himself. Now that he’s back in Slovakia, the big question is: Will justice finally catch up with him, or will his influential friends somehow save him? The investigation’s Slovak version was well covered in local media, and you can now read the shorter English version on VSquare.

HOW TIKTOK HIJACKS POLITICS, EXPLAINED BY LEADING RESEARCHER JOSEF ŠLERKA

A great feeling: you’re watching international news and, in your search for clarity, realize you have the best expert in-house. As TikTok-related controversies dominate the headlines—from its (now suspended) U.S. ban to its role in manipulating European elections—we turned to our Czech partner Investigace.cz’s Josef Šlerka, a data analyst, department head at Prague’s Charles University, and the foremost expert on social media disinformation campaigns. In this must-read interview with VSquare’s Tamara Kaňuchová, Josef breaks down all the problems with the Chinese platform. (For more, revisit our previous investigation—also led by Josef—into how TikTok amplified far-right and pro-Russian voices across Europe and was used in an attempt to hijack Romania’s presidential election.)

SLOVAKIA IN CRISIS: ROBERT FICO FACES MASS PROTESTS AND A GOVERNMENT IN DISARRAY

Slovakia is off to a rocky start in 2025, with a whirlwind of breaking news that’s hard to keep up with. Thankfully, Matej Kyjovský from ICJK helps us make sense of the chaos with this summary of recent events. The central story, of course, is Prime Minister Fico’s increasing radicalization, as he pushes a pro-Russian agenda and escalates diplomatic attacks on Ukraine. Meanwhile, his government is in disarray, shaken by two major cyberattacks on critical infrastructure, nationwide protests with over 100,000 demonstrators, and a deepening coalition crisis after multiple failed no-confidence votes, leaving the cabinet with a wobbly majority ahead of February’s key EU Council session. Catch up on Slovakia’s latest developments here.

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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. 

ORBÁN DOUBTS FICO’S SHARPNESS BUT BACKS HIS ALLY AS SLOVAK COALITION WOBBLES

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has recently expressed doubts about his Slovak counterpart Robert Fico’s political acuity, reportedly telling multiple people that Fico has become “rusty” and is no longer as sharp as he once was, according to a government-connected source. (Which is a slight understatement compared to the stance shared by more than 800 Slovak psychologists and psychiatrists in an open letter.) The two met in Bratislava on January 21, 2025, right after Fico managed to sabotage (hence survive) a no-confidence vote in parliament. Orbán has invested heavily in Fico’s return to power, even at the expense of Slovakia’s ethnic Hungarian minority. Through his government’s propaganda outlets—which also serve as the primary news source for Hungarians in southern Slovakia—Orbán actively urged ethnic Hungarian voters to back Fico’s party, Smer, instead of their traditional ethnic Hungarian party. Meanwhile, as this newsletter previously reported, Orbán’s campaign strategists have been assisting not only Fico but also Hlas, the junior coalition partner, during the previous election campaigns. 

Since then, I’ve learned from a source who worked within Orbán’s propaganda apparatus that the Centre for Digital Sovereignty (here’s a great investigation into them by fact-checking site Lakmusz.hu), a Hungarian government-linked digital campaign outfit responsible for the Hungarian government’s Facebook and other social media campaigns (mostly outsourced to a proxy called Megafon Center), has also been helping Fico—who boasts the most robust, albeit increasingly inauthentic, social media following in Slovakia. At the same time, Smer operatives have maintained close ties with Budapest. A source familiar with Slovak-Hungarian relations noted that they have been frequent visitors to the Hungarian capital—sometimes on a weekly basis—where they receive campaign advice and polling insights from Orbán’s team. However, with Fico’s government in disarray, all of Orbán’s investment in his Slovak ally appears increasingly precarious. (Viktor Orbán’s spokesperson did not respond to my request for comment.)

CENTRAL EASTERN EUROPE LEADS REGIONAL PUSH AGAINST HUNGARY’S KREMLIN-STYLE LAW

While Slovakia remains a key ally of Viktor Orbán—at least as long as its government holds—the Czech Republic has taken the lead in a symbolic fight against Hungary’s pro-Kremlin policies. After the European Commission announced that Hungary’s Russia-style foreign agent law, officially called the Law on the Defence of Sovereignty, breaches EU law and referred the case to the European Court of Justice, member states were given a March deadline to join the lawsuit. In a rare show of Visegrád-region solidarity with Hungarian civil society and independent media, the Czech Republic became the first country to formally back the EU’s legal challenge, followed soon after by Denmark. The Czech Foreign Ministry has stated that at least 12 more member states may join the case. This marks a significant shift from earlier years when Orbán, at the height of his power, benefitted from a clear West-East divide within the EU, with Central and Eastern European countries largely avoiding direct confrontation with his government. That dynamic has now changed. Besides the Nordic countries, a large bloc from Eastern Europe—including the Baltic states and Poland—is likely to support the lawsuit, according to diplomats and foreign policy experts I asked. 

Poland, which currently holds the rotating presidency of the EU Council, would be particularly significant in this shift. A few weeks ago, my colleague Wojtek Cieśla asked a senior Polish government official about Warsaw’s stance. At the time, the official said that EU Minister Adam Szłapka would make the final decision and that no position had been taken. However, Poland is now seen as likely to join the lawsuit—an important move not just symbolically, but politically, as the Visegrád country currently leads the presidency of the Council of the EU. Full disclosure: This initiative is personal to us, as the so-called Sovereignty Protection Office, created under Orbán’s foreign agent law, began by harassing our Hungarian partner outlet Atlatszo.hu while also smearing VSquare and its partners Frontstory.pl in Poland, Investigate.cz in the Czech Republic, and ICJK in Slovakia, portraying all of us as members of an alleged U.S. intelligence network in its report.

HUNGARY’S LEADERSHIP SECRETLY BACKED COVID-19 LAB LEAK THEORY, QUESTIONED CHINA’S CREDIBILITY

About a week ago, following a review ordered in the final days of the Biden administration, the CIA publicly released its latest assessment on the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. The agency now believes the virus most likely originated from a laboratory leak in China—though this conclusion is held with “low confidence” due to limited evidence. This position finally brings the CIA in line with the FBI and the U.S. Department of Energy, which had already suggested a lab-based origin years ago. This news also prompted me to revisit my notes from 2020, and I found something I did not have time to report back then: it seems like Hungary’s Orbán government also believed the virus originated from a Chinese lab but never talked about it. A source close to the Prime Minister’s Office told me at the time that classified Hungarian intelligence reports assessed the lab leak theory as likely. According to the source, senior officials in the Prime Minister’s Office believed COVID-19 had escaped from a Chinese laboratory and that Beijing attempted to cover it up. I even reached out to Hungary’s government, which did not respond to my request for comment at the time. In the spring and summer of 2020, the Hungarian parliament’s national security committee convened multiple times to discuss the origins of the virus. Participants in those hearings recalled to me that Hungary’s foreign intelligence agency also found the lab leak theory plausible—though their assessment relied entirely on shared intelligence from partner agencies, as Hungary lacked its own independent sources in China. Moreover, Hungarian foreign intelligence expressed deep skepticism about the reliability of official Chinese data and statements (of course, this happened while Viktor Orbán’s government was actively deepening ties with Beijing.) 

Meanwhile, just a week ago, Viktor Orbán released a propaganda video boasting about Hungary’s alleged successful pandemic containment measures, conveniently omitting the fact that nearly 50,000 Hungarians died from COVID-19. In mid-2021, Hungary had the second-highest COVID-19 death rate per capita in the world. Another source familiar with intelligence reports at the time later told me that, while Orbán’s government had intelligence reports early on about China itself not administering their own Sinopharm vaccine for people over 60 due to its inefficiency in that age group, Hungary still continued administering it to the elderly for political and diplomatic reasons. It’s worth remembering that Hungary was the only EU country to use Sinopharm vaccines, which was presented by Orbán’s propaganda as a gift and sign of goodwill from China. Orbán himself took Sinopharm. At the same time, Hungarian critics of the Chinese vaccine’s reported inefficiency were heavily smeared and attacked. Even as recently as last summer, the Orbán government’s aforementioned Sovereignty Protection Office released a report accusing the U.S. of being behind an “anti-Chinese vaccine narrative disinformation campaign” in Hungary. This time, what they found inconvenient to mention is that, back then, it was actually the Trump administration behind this alleged meddling.

MORE FROM OUR PARTNERS

NEW INTERNET SCAM: FRAUDSTERS “HELPING” FRAUD VICTIMS. Investigace.cz reports on a vile and increasingly common form of online fraud: scammers targeting victims who have already been defrauded, claiming they can help recover their stolen money—only to scam them again. (Text in Czech.)

THE DYNASTY: HOW THE BUSINESS EMPIRE OF VIKTOR ORBÁN’S FAMILY WAS BORN (TRAILER). Direkt36’s hour-long documentary—the first film detailing how Orbán’s family got extremely rich off public funds—premieres this Friday, but the trailer is already making waves on social media. (Hungarian, with English subtitles.) 

MINISTER OF ECONOMY ENJOYED LUXURY ABOARD PRIVATE JET ON OFFICIAL TRIPS TO PARIS, BERLIN, AND ZURICH. Atlatszo.hu reports on how one of Viktor Orbán’s most powerful ministers regularly flies on rented private luxury jets—even to nearby cities—at the expense of Hungarian taxpayers. (Text in Hungarian and English.)

This was VSquare’s 36th 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