Goulash: Guess who voted for Putin’s sanctioned friend; Polish ex-minister lobbying for MOL

FRESH FROM VSQUARE

MONEY TRAIL LINKS NATIONAL BANK HEAD’S PARTNER’S €1.5 MILLION FRENCH VILLA TO SLOVAK OLIGARCH

In an ideal world, this story would be the work of prosecutors and anti money laundering investigators. This joint story by the Investigative Center of Ján Kuciak (ICJK) and Denník N reveals, through company documents and bank transfers, how a “friend” of a close ally of Robert Fico repeatedly received millions on multiple occasions, just after he awarded lucrative state contracts. Back when it all happened, Peter Kažimír was a minister in Fico’s government overseeing finance and the economy. Currently, he’s the governor of the National Bank of Slovakia. Through a chain of offshore companies, a well-known Slovak oligarch, who is tied up in an extensive corruption case, sent money — a series of events that eventually resulted in Kažimír’s partner buying a nice little villa on the French Riviera. Eva Štefanková and Mária Benedikovičová’s article is worth reading.

HUGGING AN FBI MOST WANTED: THE GRU SPY’S HOMECOMING

Remember Pablo González, aka Pavel Rubtsov, the GRU spy who posed as a Spanish journalist while his Polish girlfriend helped him infiltrate journalist circles in Warsaw? Even after this summer’s historic prisoner swap — where jailed American journalists and Russian opposition activists were exchanged for Russian spies and assassins, including Pablo—fellow travelers, tankies, and even the European Federation of Journalists still insisted he was a legitimate journalist unfairly imprisoned in Poland. Now, an all-star investigative team from The Insider (Kato Kopaleishvili, Michael Weiss, Christo Grozev, and Roman Dobrokhotov), with help from our own Anna Gielewska, has blown that claim out of the water. Their findings reveal that, upon landing at Vnukovo Airport, Pablo not only shook hands with Putin but also warmly embraced a senior Russian military intelligence officer overseeing the GRU’s illegals (deep cover agents) program. Read their story to see how a brilliant open-source investigation cracked this case wide open.

NOT SO SAFE: LITHUANIAN MILITARY SECRETS STORED IN RUSSIAN-LINKED SAFES

Two days before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Lithuania’s elite military unit bought six safes to store classified information — from a company tied to the Russian military industry. How did this happen? Nobody noticed that the supposed Romanian and Polish owners of UAB Eurosafe LT were actually Russian nationals. Evidently, that the oddly named Eugeniusz Pietrow might actually be Yevgeny Petrov didn’t raise any red flags. While these safes were being supplied to the Lithuanian military, the same Russian businessmen appear to have been providing Moscow with ammunition storage for Grads — the rocket artillery systems bombarding Ukraine. This cool investigation by our Lithuanian partner Siena’s Šarūnas Černiauskas and The Insider’s Sergei Ezhov has already had an impact – you can find out what that was from the article. 

SLOVAK RULING PARTY ATTACKS JOURNALIST INVESTIGATING GOVERNMENT SPENDING

Harassment of investigative journalists in Slovakia has hit a new low: politicians are now using paid Facebook ads to smear and incite hatred against them. Juraj Gedra, head of the Slovak Government Office and a close ally of Prime Minister Robert Fico, personally confronted journalist Xénia Makarová after her investigation into his office. The story, a joint investigation by ICJK and the Stop Corruption Foundation, exposed the €5 million Government Office reconstruction project and its ties to oligarch Norbert Bödör, who is facing corruption charges. However, Gedra attempted to frame this as a biased attack against him by Makarová, publishing selectively edited footage of their confrontation on Facebook. The video was further amplified by ruling Smer party supporters and boosted with paid Facebook ads. An analysis by ICJK revealed the aftermath of this smear campaign: the Slovak ruling party managed to garner hundreds of thousands of views with their ads, resulting in a flood of hateful comments directed at Makarová.

RESPONSE TO HUNGARY’S RUSSIA-STYLE ATTACKS ON INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM

In this official statement, VSquare and our publisher, the Polish Fundacja Reporterów (Reporters Foundation), express solidarity with our Hungarian partner Atlatszo.hu and strongly condemn the Hungarian regime’s Sovereignty Protection Authority (SPO) for publishing a report smearing not only Atlatszo but also VSquare and our other regional partners, falsely portraying us as part of a so-called US intelligence and influence network.  “We find it ironic that an authority claiming to protect national sovereignty against foreign interference in Hungary — and using Hungarian state resources to do so — is actually attacking and smearing independent organizations in other countries,” Anna Gielewska and Wojciech Cieśla write (Gazeta Wyborcza also published our statement in Polish).

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. 

ORBÁN’S SOVEREIGNTY PROTECTION OFFICE COULD HINDER INTELLIGENCE SHARING

In Hungary, an amendment to national security legislation has empowered the aforementioned Sovereignty Protection Office (SPO) to receive intelligence briefings from Hungary’s so-called “super intelligence service,” the National Information Centre (NIC). This agency, reporting almost directly to Viktor Orbán, not only collects intelligence from all Hungarian civilian and military agencies but also conducts its own operations. Given the SPO’s growing international notoriety for Russia-style accusations against journalists and anti-corruption watchdogs — branding them as US spies — there is increasing concern over how and what intelligence the NIC is sharing with the SPO.

Within the country, this has largely flown under the radar. But several national security experts I’ve spoken with warn that even fragments of intelligence shared by Hungary’s NATO and EU allies could be funneled through the NIC to the SPO and subsequently weaponized against independent media and civil society. “This is clearly something that would prompt democratic Western governments to restrict intelligence sharing even further with Budapest,” a former intelligence officer with international cooperation experience told me. A theoretical scenario is no longer far-fetched: for instance, intelligence requested by a Hungarian agency from German counterparts could end up being misused to target an environmental NGO opposing Viktor Orbán’s industrial policies. If such misuse were revealed, it could spark political fallout back in Berlin. (In fact, an NGO that exposed pollution at Samsung’s battery factory in the city of Göd has already been targeted by the SPO, as our partner Atlatszo.hu reported.)

FORMER POLISH MINISTER WHO WORKED WITH POLISH OIL COMPANY IS NOW LOBBYIST OF HUNGARIAN COMPETITOR

Anna Łukaszewska-Trzeciakowska, the former Minister of Climate and Environment in Poland’s Law and Justice (PiS) government — and previously a state secretary charged with overseeing areas like energy infrastructure and legislative issues — quietly took on a new role in Brussels as an oil company lobbyist in September. A classic revolving door story? Not quite. Łukaszewska-Trzeciakowska isn’t working for Orlen, the Polish state oil company she once also worked with, but for its Hungarian competitor, MOL. Her new role came to light a few weeks ago when she was spotted at MOL’s annual reception in the Solvay Library in Brussels. After MOL’s spokesperson ignored my requests for comment, my excellent colleague Tadeusz Michrowski eventually confirmed her name listed as MOL’s registered lobbyist in the EU’s lobbying database. She also has a European Parliament accreditation. “I am not employed by MOL. I provide specific advisory services to the company as an independent service provider under a contract. I offer similar services to other entities,” Łukaszewska-Trzeciakowska told my colleague in an email, claiming that her lobbying for MOL focuses primarily on “the energy transition towards low- and zero-emission solutions.”

Aside from the optics of working for Orlen’s rival, there’s another glaring issue: MOL, the Hungarian oil company, has been reaping massive profits by trading Russian oil. One of the company’s primary goals in Brussels is to ensure that its Hungarian and Slovak operations remain exempt from the EU’s oil embargo. This stance clashes with the PiS government’s traditionally hardline stance on Russia and Russian energy dependence. Moreover, according to a statement from the Polish Ministry of Climate and Environment in response to our request for comment, while still in government, Łukaszewska-Trzeciakowska “was responsible, among other things, for a package of legal regulations counteracting the effects of the energy crisis caused by Russian aggression in Ukraine.” Notably, Łukaszewska-Trzeciakowska isn’t the first Polish energy sector figure to find a place within Hungary’s Russia-linked elite. As the fallout from our previous investigations into former Orlen CEO Daniel Obajtek’s secret Budapest luxury life and related revelations has shown, Hungary’s connections with Polish energy insiders are raising eyebrows.

BREAKING WITH OTHER EU MEMBERS, HUNGARY FULLY SUPPORTS SANCTIONED PUTIN ALLY AND FRIEND TO LEAD THE FIE

Last weekend, delegates from around the world gathered in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, to elect the president of the International Fencing Federation (FIE or IFF). (Disclaimer: my family boasts several great fencers and former fencers, and a close relative even attended the congress as a delegate.) The final candidates vying for the position were Otto Drakenberg, a former Swedish fencing champion, offshore sail racer, and business executive and Alisher Usmanov, a Russian-Uzbek oligarch. Usmanov, a former convict, is a close ally and friend of Vladimir Putin who previously held a minority stake in Arsenal FC and owns one of the world’s largest yachts. He is also currently sanctioned by 38 countries, including members of the EU and the US. Usmanov’s name might ring a bell for avid Goulash readers: he’s one of the three Russian oligarchs that Viktor Orbán’s government tries to remove from the EU’s sanctions list every six months. And as readers might have guessed, this time, Usmanov emerged victorious.

His win was hardly a surprise given that the FIE has effectively been his fiefdom since 2008 — until 2022, when he stepped down after sanctions were imposed, after which he allowed a close ally to act as his proxy. As the congress prepared for a secret vote, Usmanov pulled an unprecedented stunt: he had the FIE distribute a document among the delegates listing the countries that had officially pledged their support for each candidate. This document, which I obtained, showed two countries backing Drakenberg and 104 supporting Usmanov — most of them developing countries with minimal fencing activity that have nevertheless received significant financial backing from the Usmanov-dominated FIE. Notably, the only two EU countries on Usmanov’s support list were Bulgaria – in the middle of a referee cheating scandal – and Hungary. The final vote saw Usmanov defeat Drakenberg 120 to 26 under strange circumstances: Usmanov wasn’t even present, apart from a short appearance during the vote, and, as it later emerged, he immediately suspended his powers after being re-elected so that he could install another sanctions-free proxy to become interim leader of the FIE while he controls things from the background and tries to get himself removed from the sanctions lists.

Where it gets even more controversial is that, while most Western countries voted against Usmanov, Hungary’s fencing federation not only openly supported him before the secret vote but also presented an award and a gift to the EU-sanctioned oligarch as a gesture of gratitude. Sources close to Drakenberg have suggested that, based on the vote count, some other EU countries must have also supported Usmanov. However, none revealed their stance as overtly as Hungary. The Hungarian Fencing Federation declined to answer my specific questions, instead issuing a PR response claiming the vote was secret and emphasizing that Hungarians had been elected to important committee positions. While my question about their stance on EU sanctions against Usmanov went unanswered, they did remove a photo of their representatives shaking hands with the sanctioned oligarch after my inquiry. In contrast, Poland and the Czech Republic confirmed to my colleagues that they voted against Usmanov, while the Slovak federation did not respond to a request for comment. Why does the FIE and Russian influence on it matter? Because, for example, in March 2023, the FIE became the first Olympic governing body to officially reinstate Russian and Belarusian athletes and officials, legitimizing Russia and undermining international solidarity with Ukraine.

SECOND HELPINGS

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

The race for Poland’s TVN now has a Czech frontrunner. We’ve been closely following this crucial business deal impacting the Polish media market in several previous Goulash issues, so here’s the latest update: Previously, I reported that Hungary’s Orbán-connected TV2 Group appeared to be out of the running to purchase the currently American-owned TV channel. Officially, this is due to TV2’s opaque ownership structure — a hurdle they are reportedly trying to address by presenting a more respectable owner, likely someone with ties to Germany’s conservative elite. Meanwhile, what my colleagues and I are hearing from media sources in the region is that the Czech PPF Group, whose interest in TVN was reported weeks ago, has now emerged as the frontrunner in the bidding process. While TV2’s bid was widely seen in Poland as an Orbán-supported operation to essentially buy the channel for Kaczyński, PPF’s role is less clear-cut. However, PPF’s recent actions in Slovakia — where they are accused of bowing to pressure from Robert Fico’s government to rein in their local asset, TV Markíza — are not an encouraging sign. Well, there’s still a long way to go, and it will likely be several months before we know who the winner will be.

More shake-ups among editors-in-chief as Orbán recalibrates his propaganda media. This scoop from September continues to unfold, with regular follow-ups confirming my earlier reporting that Viktor Orbán blames his propagandists for poor polling results and is reshuffling top personnel. In recent weeks, for instance, the editors-in-chief of Hungary’s largest online propaganda outlet, Origo, and the website of the North Korea-style state media, hirado.hu, were replaced. (The names are irrelevant — they’re interchangeable political operatives, largely unknown even to Hungarian readers.) However, my government-connected sources indicate that more changes are on the horizon. The goal? To secure the support of female voters and win over younger audiences.

MORE FROM OUR PARTNERS

NETWORKS OF FAKE ACCOUNTS TRY TO DEVELOP DISCUSSIONS WITH REAL PEOPLE AND INFLUENCE THE DEBATE UNDER POLITICIANS’ POSTS. ICJK’s analysis of 115,000Facebook comments across 150 posts by six Slovak politicians identified at least 1,039 accounts that showed signs of inauthenticity, manipulating public opinion. (Text in Slovak.)

EUROPEAN PROSECUTOR’S OFFICE: THE ITALIAN MAFIA IN PRAGUE PROFITED FROM BILLIONS IN VAT FRAUD. Investigace.cz writes about a Europe-wide VAT fraud scheme, a financial pyramid based on 400 companies in more than 10 EU countries, including the Czech Republic. (Text in Czech.) 

IT’S A LOVE STORY – HOW SERBIA AND HUNGARY FOUND EACH OTHER AND NEVER LET GO. Viktor Orbán and Aleksandar Vučić have developed a beautiful friendship of sorts that has flourished into one of Europe’s tightest alliances, Atlatszo.hu has an analysis of the leaders’ bromance, even calling them “the Mario and Luigi of democratic backsliding.” (Text in Hungarian and English.)

This was VSquare’s 31st 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