Goulash: Orbán Shelters More Polish Asylum Seekers; Slovakia’s Turbulent Year Explained

FRESH FROM VSQUARE

“DEMOCRACIES DO NOT DISAPPEAR VOLUNTARILY”: SLOVAKIA’S YEAR OF UPHEAVAL

If you want to understand how Slovakia is starting 2026, this one’s well worth your time. After a year of legal rewrites, constitutional tinkering, and a sharp foreign-policy swerve under Robert Fico’s government, the country looks very different than it did not long ago — a change in appearance made worse by growing coziness with Russia and a slide in press freedom and democracy rankings. In this interview by VSquare’s Tamara Kaňuchová, Victor Breiner breaks down where Slovakia is headed — and how it got there. Read it here.

DIPLOMAT IN THE SHADOWS: BELARUS’S HONORARY CONSUL IN CZECHIA TRADES WITH RUSSIA DESPITE SANCTIONS

A joint investigation by investigace.cz and Ukraine’s StateWatch looks at Denis Karpovich, Belarus’s honorary consul in Czechia — and a Prague-based businessman accused of skirting Russia sanctions while exporting military-usable components via South Korea. With Belarus lacking an ambassador and other diplomats expelled over intelligence ties, the story raises questions about how Karpovich’s long, MFA-approved consular role goes far beyond routine trade diplomacy. Read the English version here.

GUNS WITHOUT BORDERS: SLOVAK PISTOLS REACH YEMENI TERROR GROUPS VIA CZECHIA

Slovak-made pistols from the company Grand Power turned up in war-torn Yemen, allegedly routed via the Czech Republic despite international bans — investigated by Investigace.cz and Slovakia’s Investigative Center of Ján Kuciak. The weapons were openly advertised in Sana’a and controlled by the Houthis, a group designated as terrorists by the US and others, pointing to serious failures in export controls and end-user checks. Read it here. (Check out our previous stories on the controversial Slovak Grand Power company here and here.)

HOW ROMANIANS HELPED CONSERVATIVE BROTHERS IN POLAND WIN ELECTIONS

In case you missed our big pre-Christmas investigation: this cross-border deep dive looks at the fast-forming pro-Trump alliance uniting Central Europe’s conservative forces — and the campaign operatives powering their rise. As Viktor Orbán’s dominance wanes, new standard-bearers are stepping forward, notably Romania’s George Simion and Poland’s Karol Nawrocki. Read how they’re shaping the next phase of right-wing politics in the region. (You can also listen to the Visegrád Insight podcast with Anna Gielewska explaining the investigation.)

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. 

TWO MORE POLISH CITIZENS RECEIVE ASYLUM IN HUNGARY

Just before Christmas, Hungary’s EU delegation sent a letter to all other member state delegations in Brussels informing them that Hungary had granted asylum to citizens of another EU country: Poland. Multiple European diplomats confirmed the letter to me, which reads: “Hungary informed the Council [of the European Union] on 23 December 2025 that a decision has been taken to approve the asylum application of two Polish citizens.” The names, however, were conspicuously absent. I asked three Hungarian ministries — the Prime Minister’s Cabinet Office, foreign affairs, and justice — for clarification. None replied. As avid Goulash readers will know, this means the number of Polish fugitives sheltered by Viktor Orbán has now risen to three.

Almost exactly a year earlier, in December 2024, Hungary granted political asylum to former Polish deputy justice minister Marcin Romanowski, who is wanted at home for 11 financial crimes related to the alleged defrauding of the so-called Justice Fund. Through a public information request, I was able to confirm that Viktor Orbán used a bogus ultra-conservative pamphlet as justification for Romanowski’s asylum. It was published by the same Orbán proxy think tank — the Center for Fundamental Rights — which subsequently employed Romanowski. Meanwhile, I also revealed in this newsletter that Polish prosecutors began investigating whether Hungarian citizens had helped Romanowski evade justice and go into hiding — an offense punishable by up to five years in prison. Then, in late 2025, Romanowski’s former boss, ex–justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro, showed up in Budapest for an unusually long stay, just as criminal charges were being prepared against him and his immunity was lifted by the Sejm. He even met Viktor Orbán in his office.

When Polish journalists flocked to Budapest to look for Ziobro, he brushed off their questions about whether asylum had come up in their conversation. I could not independently confirm the identities involved in the new asylum decision, so that’s still a mystery. However, none of this should be shocking. Months ago, Orbán openly hinted that more Poles could be offered asylum. It now appears that the promise is being quietly fulfilled as a secret Christmas gift. The other question is how long this protection will last given that Orbán’s poll numbers still suggest he is on track to lose Hungary’s April 2026 elections.

FROM PRINT TO PIXELS: ORBÁN’S MEDIA EMPIRE SET FOR A REBUILD

Speaking of the Hungarian election campaign: despite wall-to-wall attacks, Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz and its vast propaganda empire have failed to seriously dent the rise of opposition leader Péter Magyar. Multiple waves of fabricated allegations were dutifully echoed across the pro-government media ecosystem — and still didn’t land. According to several media industry insiders, this isn’t just a campaign problem. Regardless of how the election goes, Orbán is expected to trim and recalibrate his media empire after the spring. The reason is simple: the old model no longer works.

In recent years, government propaganda has largely shifted to social-media operations, ads on Facebook and Google (companies happy to accept Hungarian dark money), and influencer-style messaging. Compared to that, classic outlets — especially print — look expensive, slow, and inefficient. Several industry sources say government contacts are openly floating the idea of shutting down county-level local print newspaper operations altogether (while keeping their websites alive). Ever since Orbán-linked proxies took over local papers in 2016 and turned them into uniform propaganda sheets, circulation has steadily collapsed. Readers left; costs stayed.

Another likely casualty is Bors, a low-quality nationwide tabloid, the name of which literally means “pepper,” though its recent output has been mostly bile. Sources expect its print operation to be closed after Orbán-aligned interests acquired the far more influential Blikk tabloid daily from Switzerland’s Ringier late last year. The irony is strong: Bors has recently been one of the loudest megaphones for the most absurd claims about Orbán’s opposition. It has lied so persistently that a court ordered it to stop distributing a special propaganda issue — a ruling that prompted Orbán’s allies to loudly rally to the tabloid’s defense in the name of “press freedom.” Behind the scenes, however, they are said to be planning to shut down either the print operation, or the full outlet once the election is over. So much for press freedom.

Zooming out, the shake-up reaches even higher. The entire media holding that has overseen much of Orbán’s print propaganda operation, Mediaworks Zrt, is expected to be significantly downgraded in the coming years. The political and financial center of gravity is shifting toward Indamedia — a leaner, more digital-friendly Orbán proxy that now owns Blikk and runs Index.hu, which was Hungary’s largest news outlet before its 2020 takeover. In short: in Hungary, the second half of 2026 is likely to bring fewer printing presses and more ad dashboards — less shouting on paper, more micro-targeted messaging online. For example, the type of messages we investigated — paying for Facebook ads specifically designed to smear journalists and independent media outlets.

ORBÁN WARNS OF WAR — WHILE STAYING SILENT ON RUSSIAN MILITARY INTELLIGENCE’S PRESENCE

As Hungary’s prime minister desperately tries to frame the spring 2026 elections as a choice between war and peace, his rhetoric is growing darker. Europe, he claims, is drifting toward war with Russia — and this could be Hungary’s last election before a conflict. “Brussels” and EU leaders are cast as reckless warmongers, while Viktor Orbán presents himself as the lone guardian keeping Hungary out of the fire. What he carefully avoids mentioning is the obvious: if war ever does come, it’s not Hungary’s EU or NATO allies voters should fear — it’s Russia. Which leads to an uncomfortable question: if the threat is truly that grave, why does Orbán’s government still allow a full-fledged Russian military intelligence presence to operate in Budapest?

As I’ve written before, Budapest continues to host a Russian military attaché — along with deputies and assistants at the Russian Embassy who are widely known to be partly overt, partly undercover officers of the GRU. While the other Visegrád countries expelled these officers years ago, Hungary did not. Their team is still there, still operating under diplomatic cover. To clarify the extent of official diplomatic contact, I filed a public information request with the Hungarian Ministry of Defense, asking for a list of meetings held since 2022 with the Russian military attaché and his colleagues. The ministry refused — not because such meetings never happened, but because, it argued, the information is simply “not public.” There is at least one case we know of: the Hungarian army’s deputy chief of staff met with the departing Russian military attaché at a Chinese reception. NATO allies were quite puzzled.

So to recap: Orbán warns Hungarians about an imminent war with Russia — while quietly keeping Russia’s military intelligence officers comfortably in place in Budapest and refusing to say who is meeting them.

MORE FROM OUR PARTNERS

If you like our scoops and stories, here are some more articles from our partners!

A UKRAINIAN CORRUPTION SCANDAL THAT ALSO REACHED PRESIDENT ZELENSKY’S INNER CIRCLE HAS TRAILS IN SLOVAKIA — WE FOUND THE ASSETS OF THOSE INVOLVED. An investigation by ICJK reveals Slovak business, property, and financial links in a corruption case at Ukraine’s state energy company Energoatom that reaches into President Zelensky’s inner circle. (Text in Slovak.)

TRUMP’S WAR ON VENEZUELAN CARTELS: HUNDREDS DEAD, A DICTATOR KIDNAPPED, AND A CARTEL THAT DOES NOT EXIST. Investigace.cz’s article argues that Trump’s war on alleged Venezuelan narco-terrorism has already left nearly 200 dead and a kidnapped presidential couple, yet one cartel he claims to be fighting doesn’t exist at all and the other has no proven links to Maduro. (Text in Czech.)

SINCE 2020, THE STATE HAS LOST 245 PUBLIC INTEREST DATA LAWSUITS IN THE CAPITAL ALONE. Átlátszó’s analysis of court data shows that Hungary’s most secretive government and state bodies routinely deny public-interest information requests, only to lose 245 such lawsuits at first instance since 2020. (Text in Hungarian and English.)

DESSERT AND FURTHER READINGS

For those still hungry for more, we’re finishing today’s menu with a couple of recommendations from our friends and colleagues.

“WE KNOW THAT THE KREMLIN IS VERY WORRIED.” My good friend, Estonia’s top investigative journalist Holger Roonemaa (who works for Delfi Estonia and OCCRP), has just launched his English-language Substack newsletter, The Baltic Flank, which I wholeheartedly recommend following. The debut features an excellent interview with former senior intelligence officer Andres Vosman, who previously oversaw analyses of Russia-related intelligence at Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service (EFIS) and is now Estonia’s ambassador to Israel.

THE HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR WRITER WHO CAN HELP US THROUGH THIS OMINOUS ERA. VSquare editor Emily Tamkin’s opinion piece in The Forward urges readers to rediscover the work of Czech Jewish Holocaust survivor and novelist Arnošt Lustig, whose humane portrayals of atrocity and moral resilience offer vital lessons for navigating today’s crises. Really recommended (and you can follow Emily’s Substack newsletter here).

HOW TO SHARE ENERGY WITH YOUR NEIGHBOUR. In an article for The European Correspondent, VSquare’s Tamara Kaňuchová explains how sharing locally produced renewable energy between neighbours could strengthen Europe’s energy security.

EUROPE’S DEMOCRATIC SECURITY CHALLENGED BY THE UNITED STATES NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY. Visegrád Insight examines how the 2025 United States National Security Strategy challenges European democratic security by echoing far-right and pro-Russian narratives, potentially empowering populist playbooks in Central and Eastern Europe while pushing Brussels toward defence modernisation and exposing broader transatlantic tensions.

HUNGARIANS PROTEST SLOVAK LAW ON WARTIME DECREES IN BUDAPEST. The Slovak Spectator reports on a torchlit protest outside the Slovak Embassy in Budapest on Saturday evening, January 3, condemning a recent amendment to Slovakia’s Criminal Code and calling for solidarity with ethnic Hungarians across the border. Hungarian opposition leader Péter Magyar also appeared at the demonstration.

WHAT THE EU WILL BE BUSY WITH IN 2026. The article by Julius E. O. Fintelmann for The European Correspondent outlines the key political, economic, security, and policy challenges the European Union will face in 2026, from climate and migration issues to strategic autonomy and internal divisions over integration.

This was VSquare’s 57th 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