Goulash: Pre-Election Sell-Off in Budapest; Epstein’s Slovak Friend; Hungary Saves Russia’s NASA

FRESH FROM VSQUARE

“…AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, FRIEND”: JEFFREY EPSTEIN’S ENCOUNTERS WITH MIROSLAV LAJČÁK

Karin Kőváry Sólymos at the Investigative Center of Ján Kuciak (ICJK) maps out new revelations from the US Department of Justice’s Epstein Files showing at least 25 meetings and extensive communication between the now-resigned Slovak diplomat and the convicted sex offender, with Epstein even referring to Lajčák as a “friend.” The piece, accompanied by detailed infographics, traces their contact from 2017 — shortly after Lajčák became president of the UN General Assembly — through multiple meetings in New York, Europe and Palm Beach, including at Epstein’s residences. Lajčák now defends the interactions as social and diplomatic, but the sheer frequency and context — lewd messages about women — triggered his departure as national security adviser to Prime Minister Robert Fico and intensified scrutiny of his role in international networks. For example, despite the scandal, Lajčák is still a member of the supervisory board of Slovnaft, owned by Hungary’s MOL Group. Check out the investigation here.

THE MURDER OF JÁN KUCIAK: INSIDE THE VERDICT THE SUPREME COURT OVERTURNED

In an excerpt from his book Stories from the Captured State: The Origins of Kočner’s Library, ICJK journalist Tomáš Madleňák revisits the murder trial of investigative journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kušnírová. A Specialized Criminal Court had acquitted alleged mastermind Marian Kočner and his associate Alena Zsuzsová — only for the Slovak Supreme Court to overturn that verdict and order a new trial. Madleňák lays out the procedural errors that derailed the original ruling and explains the grounds on which the retrial began in early 2026, underscoring the ongoing struggle for accountability in one of the most consequential crimes in recent Slovak history. Read it here.

RUSSIA’S WAR BEYOND THE BATTLEFIELD: EUROPE’S HYBRID THREAT WAKE-UP CALL

In this interview for VSquare, Tamara Kaňuchová speaks with Mykola Balaban, deputy head of Ukraine’s Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security (SPRAVDI), about the evolution of Russian information warfare since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022. Balaban, a specialist in countering foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI), traces how the war exposed deep gaps in Europe’s hybrid threat awareness and opened new channels for Russian interference in politics and information ecosystems across the continent. Check it out.

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. 

HUNGARY SHIELDS RUSSIA’S SPACE AGENCY FROM EU SANCTIONS DESPITE WAR ROLE

Hungary has quietly secured the removal of Roscosmos — Russia’s state space agency — from the list of entities proposed for targeting in the EU’s 20th sanctions package, now under negotiation in Brussels, sources familiar with the talks told me. The exemption amounts to diplomatic protection for an agency that openly supports Russia’s war effort. Roscosmos provides satellite communications to the Russian military, including its Gonets constellation used in battlefield operations, and has announced plans to launch more than 100 additional satellites to strengthen Russia’s drone warfare capabilities against Ukraine. Its leadership has acknowledged that over a thousand employees are directly involved in the war. The agency even formed its own infantry battalion, the “Uran” (Uranus) unit, recruiting from its 170,000 staff. By its own figures, 342 employees had been wounded and 105 killed or missing while fighting in Ukraine by April 2025.

NATO allies have also warned that Russian spacecraft, including the Luch satellite series, have conducted threatening rendezvous maneuvers near European military and civilian satellites. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius called the Russian activities in space “a fundamental threat to all of us.” Despite this, Budapest has maintained close ties with Roscosmos. From 2019 onward, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó repeatedly announced that Hungary’s second astronaut mission to the ISS would proceed in cooperation with the Russian agency, and in February 2022 — just ten days before Russia’s full-scale invasion — he signed a cooperation agreement with Roscosmos. Once the war made the partnership politically untenable, Hungary quietly pivoted to US partners, ultimately sending Hungarian astronaut Tibor Kapu to the ISS aboard a SpaceX rocket in June 2025. That shift makes Hungary’s current effort to shield Roscosmos from EU sanctions harder to explain. Hungary’s foreign ministry did not respond to my request for comment.

ORBÁN’S SON REAPPEARES AS HUNGARY STRIKES LIBYA ENERGY DEALS

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s son, Gáspár Orbán, has surfaced in yet another opaque set of dealings involving an African country. According to government-connected sources, the younger Orbán appeared at events in Budapest in late January in the company of representatives of the Libyan government and its state oil company. Hungary’s quiet pivot toward Libya largely went unnoticed, despite official reports since late 2025 about talks on energy, security and economic cooperation. In January, Hungary’s MOL signed a partnership agreement with Libya’s National Oil Corporation. Soon after, MOL announced it had successfully bid for offshore exploration rights with Spain’s Repsol and Turkish Petroleum. But MOL was not negotiating alone. The Hungarian state was also represented — led by Marcell Biró, Viktor Orbán’s chief national security adviser (and a possible candidate for minister of interior in case Orbán is reelected in April).

In response to my request for comment, the Prime Minister’s Cabinet Office said only that Gáspár Orbán serves in the Hungarian Defence Forces, is a soldier, and has neither traveled to Libya nor taken part in “official negotiations” with the Libyan side. However, a government-connected source told me that the Hungarian Ministry of Defense has in fact seconded the younger Orbán to the national security adviser’s team — a detail the Cabinet Office did not mention. As I previously reported, Gáspár Orbán helped assemble Biró’s national security staff, personally participating in interviews with candidates to build a diplomatic unit tasked with scouting “unorthodox” economic and political opportunities worldwide. War-torn Libya — the government of which has been implicated in numerous atrocities and is led by a former Gaddafi confidant widely regarded as deeply corrupt — appears to fit that strategy.

Gáspár Orbán’s previous venture involved the controversial effort to deploy 200 Hungarian soldiers to Libya’s southern neighbor, Chad. Along with Le Monde, we revealed that he also played a key role in those negotiations, attempting to avoid attention by wearing a fedora and a surgical mask whenever cameras were present — an only partly successful disguise. No photographs have surfaced of him from the Libya talks, but multiple Hungarian sources confirm he met with the Libyan delegation in Budapest. His possible involvement in offshore oil negotiations is striking. A lawyer turned professional footballer turned Christian preacher turned soldier, Gáspár Orbán has no evident background in the energy sector. The optics are made even more awkward by the fact that Viktor Orbán recently branded the British-Dutch oil company Shell a “profiteer of death” and “hounds of war” after one of its former executives joined Hungary’s opposition. Meanwhile, Orbán’s propaganda machine suddenly became concerned about large oil companies (and their investors) seriously harming the environment. I have also reached out to MOL with a set of questions but have received no reply.

PRE-ELECTION STATE ASSET SELL-OFF IN BUDAPEST

Hungary’s government is drawing up plans to sell off state-owned real estate around Budapest’s major railway stations in the weeks leading up to the April 12 election, two sources who were informed of the preparations told me. Overseeing the effort is the Ministry of Construction and Transport, led by János Lázár — widely rumored as a possible successor to Viktor Orbán and currently serving as something of his running mate in the campaign — which has ordered both the Hungarian railway company and the state asset management firm to fast-track the disposal of unused, dilapidated and underdeveloped plots of land and abandoned buildings around the capital’s four main railway stations: Keleti, Nyugati, Déli and Kelenföld. Together, these properties could be worth hundreds of millions of euros. The state company organizing this pre-election sell-off, the Hungarian National Asset Management Inc., has already circulated a draft tender document.

To be fair, flogging off prime state-owned land in Budapest is hardly a new hobby for the Orbán government. It has been systematically moving public assets into private hands for years — including a plan, first reported in this newsletter, to hand over half of an entire inner-city district to an Emirati billionaire for a mini-Dubai-style development, a scheme that was ultimately shelved. What sets the current plan apart is the timing. Two sources said the government intends to sign contracts with prospective buyers by April 10 — two days before polls open — and that those buyers are rumored to be companies and businessmen with close ties to the ruling circle. The government has offered no official explanation for the urgency. One possible clue: according to recent independent polls — as well as a non-public internal survey conducted by Orbán’s own campaign, which I reported on two weeks ago — the government is trailing the opposition by a wide margin and is on course to lose power. The ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

MORE FROM OUR PARTNERS

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

“THE TRAP” – DIREKT36’S NEW FILM ABOUT ORBÁN’S HISTORIC CHANCE. The makers of The Dynasty are back with a new film — this time taking a hard look at what Viktor Orbán did with the extraordinary opportunity he was given to lift Hungary up. Told through the issues that affect ordinary people most, the documentary traces the past 16 years of his rule. The film has already surpassed one million views on YouTube in just five days. (Watch it in Hungarian, with English subtitles.)

THE MANAGEMENT OF THE SAMSUNG FACTORY IN GÖD LOBBIED THE GOVERNMENT TO BAN ÁTLÁTSZÓ. Internal documents obtained by Telex revealed that in March 2024, the management of the Samsung battery factory in Göd discussed lobbying the government to stop Átlátszó from investigating the factory’s pollution. Three months after Samsung’s lobbying, Hungary’s Sovereignty Protection Office launched an investigation against Átlátszó. (Text in Hungarian and English.)

PERSECUTION WITHOUT BORDERS: HOW AUTHORITARIAN GOVERNMENTS PERSECUTE THEIR DISSIDENTS IN OTHER COUNTRIES. Investigace interviewed Nat Schenkkan, co-author of a research report on transnational repression for the European Parliament, on how states monitor, harass, or directly physically attack and murder their citizens living abroad — including in Europe and the Czech Republic. (Text in Czech.)

MORE THAN 60 BILLION SIGNED BY KALIŇÁK’S MINISTRY TO STRNAD JR., POSSIBLY TO HELP HIM WITH THE STOCK EXCHANGE LISTING. The Ministry of Defence under Robert Kaliňák has signed contracts worth over €60 billion with Czechoslovak Group (CSG), the arms empire of Czech businessman Michal Strnad. Most are framework contracts the companies may never fulfil — but, according to ICJK’s article, they may have boosted CSG’s share price at its stock exchange listing, which made Strnad the third wealthiest person in the world under 40. (Text in Slovak.)

KALIŇÁK’S BUSINESS PARTNER HAS A COMPANY WITH STRNAD SR., WHO RECEIVED HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS IN CONTRACTS FROM THE MINISTRY OF DEFENSE. Slovak defense minister Robert Kaliňák hid a Croatian villa from his asset declaration. Right next door sits a property tied to his business partner through an Austrian shell company. That same partner has business links to the major arms dealer whose firm has received hundreds of millions in defense ministry contracts under Kaliňák, ICJK’s investigation reveals. (Text in Slovak.)

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.

„VIKTOR STRIPPED THE FACTORY OF PROTECTION” – THE COVER-UP AT SAMSUNG’S HUNGARIAN BATTERY PLANT AND HOW THE GOVERNMENT MISHANDLED IT. Hungarian news site Telex’s bombshell investigation reveals how one of Hungary’s most important factories concealed serious environmental and labor violations from the government — and how, after a secret counterintelligence investigation uncovered the wrongdoing, it was the Orbán government itself that buried the findings. Read it in Hungarian or English.

SELECTED BITS OF THE 2026 BALTIC THREAT ASSESSMENTS: A “GREATER BALTIC” AND A SELF-IMMOLATED PROTESTER, WARNING TO ARMENIA. Holger Roonemaa summarizes key findings from the latest yearbooks of Latvia’s Constitution Protection Bureau (SAB) and the Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service (EFIS). “They give a good overview of what to expect from Russia in 2026 — not only in the Baltic region, but well beyond.” Read Holger’s latest piece and follow his Substack newsletter.

YOUR HOME IS LEAKING MONEY. Tamara Kaňuchová for The European Correspondent shows how Europe’s ageing and energy-inefficient housing stock is costing households billions in wasted energy and higher bills, with around 75% of buildings poorly insulated or reliant on fossil fuels. Worth a read.

This was VSquare’s 60th 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