Goulash: Orbán’s Yacht & Plane Watch; Babiš Allies Mobilize; China Headaches for Hungary

FRESH FROM VSQUARE

ORBÁN’S SUMMER VACATION: PRIVATE PLANE ARRIVAL, SURROUNDED BY FRIENDS’ SUPERYACHTS

Hungarian media spent the summer covering the lavish lifestyle and excessive luxury of the Orbán regime’s inner circle, even as Prime Minister Viktor Orbán tried to project a modest image by flying budget airlines. That changed in late August, when he vacationed in Croatia — and our Hungarian partner Átlátszó caught him flying on a private plane. They then tracked how the superyachts of Orbán’s oligarchs gathered around his holiday spot on the island of Brač. Read the English summary of these investigations here.

FROM THE KREMLIN TO KARLOVY VARY: INSIDE PUTIN’S ORTHODOX WOMEN’S NETWORK

Sometimes it takes two or three steps to prove that ultraconservatives pushing extremist agendas to sow division are linked to the Kremlin. This is not one of those times. The Russian Union of Orthodox Women is as Putinist as it gets. While lobbying for anti-abortion laws in Russia, its leaders are deeply embedded — and invested — in the Czech Republic as well, raising serious national security concerns. Investigace’s Kristina Vejnbender mapped their network — read it here.

HOW A CZECH SUPPLY CHAIN FEEDS THE GLOBAL SPYWARE MACHINE

Beyond NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware — used against government critics in Poland and Hungary — another Israeli company, Intellexa, and its Predator spyware have been implicated in human rights abuses and journalist surveillance. In Greece, Intellexa representatives are now on trial for exactly that. Intellexa’s operations are so global it’s hard to keep track — but our colleagues at Investigace, Paul May and Zuzana Sotová, have uncovered new evidence linking a key Israeli figure living in the Czech Republic and Czech entities to the Predator spyware business. Read their investigation here.

TRADING WITH THE ENEMY: POLISH FIRMS LINKED TO RUSSIAN MILITARY SUPPLY NETWORK

There are two kinds of people: those who say sanctions against Russia don’t work because they want to keep doing business with Russia — and those who say sanctions don’t work because they’re poorly enforced and easily circumvented. Our Frontstory colleagues’ latest investigation into a network of Polish companies and Russian partners openly advertising — and profiting from — sanctions evasion clearly supports the second argument. Even the EU country most hawkish on countering Russia’s threats hasn’t been able to stop a local company from exploiting loopholes to sell microelectronics and specialized industrial components to Russia. Read the full investigation 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. 

U.S.–HUNGARY RIFT QUIETLY GROWING OVER ORBÁN’S CHINA TIES

Hungary’s East–West balancing act — now mirrored by Slovakia — is getting trickier as the Trump administration shifts from its naive “dealmaking” phase to a more combative stance toward China. “Please give my warmest regards to Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un as you conspire against the United States of America,” President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social (reposted by VP JD Vance) after Xi Jinping gathered the “Axis of Evil” in Beijing for his Victory Day parade — with Slovak PM Robert Fico and Hungarian FM Péter Szijjártó photographed in the back rows. On the surface, U.S.–Hungarian relations still look warm. But my sources closely following U.S.–Hungarian relations say cracks are forming, largely due to Orbán’s refusal to decouple from China. In April, the Chinese Communist Party’s Global Times attacked U.S. chargé d’affaires in Budapest Robert Palladino — appointed to this position under Trump — accusing him of trying to undermine Chinese–Hungarian friendship. Budapest stayed silent — and Washington took notice.

Washington was then surprised by two recent high-level visits to Budapest: Chinese spy chief Chen Wenqing in May and Zhao Leji, China’s No. 3 leader, in July. The Americans were concerned that Chen — who arrived via Moscow — not only met Orbán to discuss “economic issues” but was also received at the headquarters of Hungary’s foreign intelligence agency, the Information Office (IH). The latter meeting was not made public. However, a Hungarian government-linked source confirmed the top-level intelligence meeting, saying it focused on security issues related to the Budapest–Belgrade railway — China’s last Belt and Road project in the EU and a lucrative one for Orbán’s family and inner circle: Lőrinc Mészáros’s firms are consortium partners directly profiting from it, while Orbán’s father’s stone mine supplies overpriced materials as a subcontractor.

ONE ANDREJ BABIŠ ALLY IS PLOTTING A CZECH–CHINA RESET

With Czech parliamentary elections just a month away (October 3–4) and Andrej Babiš’s ANO party looking like a sure winner, his allies are already jockeying for positions and influence. Still, there’s broad consensus that the country’s foreign policy direction won’t shift much. (A sign: it’s being floated that the foreign ministry could go to Jakub Kulhánek — former MFA and current UN ambassador — or Miloslav Stašek, current ambassador to the U.S. For possible scenarios of the next government’s foreign policy, see the latest paper from Czech think tank AMO.) This is partly because Babiš himself lacks the strongly pro-Russian or pro-Chinese leanings of his ally Viktor Orbán or neighbor Robert Fico — but mostly because Czech society remains more resilient to Russian and Chinese influence than Slovakia or Hungary (see recent CEIAS and GLOBSEC researches covered on VSquare).

That hasn’t stopped some in Babiš’s camp from sketching out alternative plans. Take Radek Vondráček, ANO’s former Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, who — according to a source closely following Czech–Chinese relations — is pushing for a major visit to China, likely next spring, to reset relations strained by Prague’s vocal support for Taiwan and Tibet. (On the same day Orbán hosted China’s No. 3 leader in Budapest in July, Czech President Petr Pavel met with the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government-in-exile in India.) It’s unclear how much backing Vondráček has or what Prague would gain — Beijing is likely to continue labeling the Czechs as hostile and pro-Taiwanese regardless. I reached out to Vondráček for confirmation and details but haven’t received a reply.

CZECH “MAESTRO” SELLING HIS PICTURES AGAIN?

Despite the lack of media reports or public information, several Czech government officials told me they’ve heard that a well-known — if artistically underappreciated — Czech maestro of contemporary painting is once again on an exhibition tour. “I’ve heard about him going to Budapest, but I don’t even want to know about it,” one source said; another mentioned similar rumors about Bratislava. In both cases, the painter allegedly joined exhibitions featuring his colorful, avant-garde works — and likely sold them. If you’re wondering why we’re writing about this — since VSquare is not an arts outlet — the painter in question is Czech MP Jaroslav Faltýnek, Andrej Babiš’s close ally, alleged partner in crime in his EU subsidy fraud case, former ANO deputy head, and ex-board member of Babiš’s Agrofert conglomerate.

Czech media reported extensively that Faltýnek has been selling his amateur paintings to businessmen for hundreds of thousands of crowns (tens of thousands of euros) — works so bad that one art critic I spoke to called them “Art Kindergarten.” Faltýnek denies any wrongdoing, and it seems he has indeed invented a legally bulletproof way to receive large sums from entrepreneurs. Perhaps it’s just a coincidence that rumors of his exhibitions in Hungary and Slovakia are circulating as Babiš appears poised to return to power. Faltýnek did not respond to my request for comment. In the meantime, you can browse his paintings here — maybe even consider it a forward-looking investment, if you know what I mean.

ORBÁN-ALIGNED HUNGARIAN OLIGARCHS AND BUSINESSMEN MOVE ASSETS AMID TANKING POLL NUMBERS

More subtle signs of an expected power shift are emerging in Hungary (for earlier similar examples, read our previous Goulash). Multiple senior representatives of non-state aligned Hungarian banks told me that many well-known oligarchs and members of Viktor Orbán’s inner circle have started moving part of their wealth from accounts at government-aligned banks to other, mostly foreign-owned Hungarian banks. “If they’re opening accounts with us, imagine how much they’ve already wired abroad to Switzerland or Singapore,” one banker remarked. This phenomenon—largely invisible to the public because of banking secrecy—coincides with declining support for Orbán’s government and independent polls suggesting that, as things stand, his regime could lose re-election in April 2026. 

Bankers I’ve spoken with say oligarchs and Orbán-aligned businessmen are moving assets to avoid potential seizure by a future democratic government. And it’s not just the business elite: “We’re also seeing a coordinated effort by some ‘privatized,’ Orbán-loyalist-controlled Hungarian universities to transfer their wealth elsewhere,” another source said. One of the main government-aligned banks, MBH Bank—co-owned by Orbán’s childhood friend Lőrinc Mészáros and the Hungarian state—told me it rejects such “rumors” as malicious or political and says its position is strong, citing stable indicators, with deposits and both private-banking and premium-banking assets under management up year over year.

SECOND HELPINGS

We’d already reported but the story went on… here’s a second bite of our previous stories and scoops.

MBH Bank’s Spanish loans likely broke local laws. Last September, we reported in this newsletter that the Hungarian bank behind the Spanish far-right Vox party’s multi-million-euro loan could only have been MBH Bank — a claim Vox soon acknowledged, while MBH stayed silent. Now, Spanish outlet InfoLibre and Dutch investigative site Follow the Money have revealed that Vox’s two loans — €6.5 million and €7 million — carried an unusually high 11% interest rate. They also found that neither Vox nor MBH fully complied with Spanish law, which could result in heavy fines for Vox (which has just been hit with a record €1.15 million penalty for a previous party-financing violation). (MBH Bank refused to reply questions about their loans to Vox, citing bank secrecy.)

GRU-linked pro-Orbán “security expert” is back on a Russian propaganda tour. Before the summer break, we reported that a Hungarian pro-Orbán propagandist was heading to Russia to flood state media with Kremlin talking points. Now that he’s already posting photos from Dagestan, I can name him: Georg Spöttle, whom I recently investigated. Spöttle — a German-Hungarian propagandist posing as a “security expert” — had ties to GRU officer Oleg Smirnov, Russia’s military attaché in Prague and later Budapest, and took propaganda trips to Russia facilitated by Russian intelligence. The link surfaced when an acquaintance of Spöttle failed a national security check while seeking a diplomatic post. Since then, he’s remained a fixture on Hungarian and Russian state-aligned media.

MORE FROM OUR PARTNERS

WE WILL NOT BE INTIMIDATED: RESPONSE TO THE FICO GOVERNMENT’S UNDERMINING OF ICJK’S WORK. Our Slovak partner, the Investigative Center of Ján Kuciak (ICJK), was directly attacked in a Slovak government document responding to the European Commission’s Rule of Law Report — simply because ICJK’s Safe Journalism platform had highlighted earlier instances of the Fico government’s attacks on the media. (Text in Slovak.)

GERMANY NOW CONSIDERS HUNGARY A SECURITY THREAT AND PREPARES TO TAKE TOUGH ACTION. According to an article by Átlátszó citing sources close to the German government, Berlin now views Orbán’s anti-Ukrainian policy as a security threat. Germany is reportedly more willing than before to support curbing Hungary’s EU voting rights and freezing additional EU funds. (Text available in Hungarian and English.)

CZECH CITIZEN INVOLVED IN SANCTIONS EVASION SCHEME AT RUSSIAN BANK, U.S. AUTHORITY CLAIMS. Investigace reports on Czech citizen Daniel Haindl — a senior executive at Russia’s National Reserve Bank — who was placed under U.S. sanctions last year. They also found that Haindl’s Czech company quickly changed ownership and has since gone into liquidation. (Text in Czech.)

This was VSquare’s 48th 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