Goulash: Rendez-vous with Putin Behind Allies’ Backs; Slovak Pistols and Czech Cocaine Pilots

FRESH FROM VSQUARE

HOW CZECH PILOTS FLEW FOR A COCAINE CARTEL

A private jet lands near Basel — innocently enough — only to reveal 600 kg of cocaine in 21 suitcases. The smugglers? A Balkan cartel helped by two Czech pilots who apparently thought they were flying gold — because that makes total sense. When police follow the suitcase-van convoy, they catch the cartel boss in a café, the van driver in a garage — and suddenly the “jet-set lifestyle” looks more like a budget crime drama. And just when you thought it couldn’t get more absurd: a former Czech hospital director held shares in the flight operator — because what’s more normal than hospital executives investing in shady private jets used for drug trafficking? Read Barbora Šturmová and Pavla Holcová’s story in English here (or the Czech version here).

RUSSIAN FACTORY PRODUCES WEAPONS OF A SLOVAK BRAND FAVORED BY FICO’S GOVERNMENT

Slovak pistols somehow keep appearing in Russia, which is truly shocking given that everyone involved swears they follow sanctions to the letter. Slovak manufacturer Grand Power insists it left the Russian market in 2014 — except for the licenses, money flows, and production lines that oddly kept going for years. Even after the invasion of Ukraine, Grand Power weapons still popped up in Russian institutions, apparently teleported there via “third countries.” And despite all this, the same brand just happens to be the only one the Slovak defense ministry is negotiating with for a €100-million rearmament deal, which is of course a complete coincidence. Matej Kyjovský of the Investigative Center of Ján Kuciak and Sergey Panov of The Insider pieced together this story — read it in English on VSquare (or in Slovak on ICJK).

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. 

THE TRIP NO ONE WAS TOLD ABOUT: ORBÁN HEADS TO THE KREMLIN, AGAIN

There are scoops that simply can’t be kept in the fridge — they spoil the moment they’re set aside. This was one of them. On Tuesday afternoon, I published on my social channels that Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán is travelling to Moscow to meet Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin on November 28, as confirmed by a trusted source familiar with details of the trip. Within minutes, my phone lit up with messages from journalists, diplomats and government officials, all asking the same thing: what on earth is happening? Their reactions said it all. No one — at least not Hungary’s NATO or EU partners, according to several diplomatic sources — had been informed of the visit. It seems it wasn’t coordinated with Washington either. The situation echoed last summer’s episode, when I similarly revealed a secretly planned Orbán–Putin meeting arranged behind allies’ backs. Oops!… He’s done it again.

Since publishing the scoop, I’ve gathered further details from both Hungarian and European diplomatic sources. Orbán is expected to travel with a larger delegation of dozens of people, including foreign minister Péter Szijjártó, construction and transport minister János Lázár, and national security advisor Marcell Biró. Interestingly, finance minister Márton Nagy and energy minister Csaba Lantos don’t seem to have a seat on the plane, as of current plans. However, energy will still dominate the talks, especially after the US granted Hungary a one-year exemption from its Russian oil and gas sanctions. Nuclear issues will also be raised, as Westinghouse joins the Russian-designed Paks nuclear plant as a fuel supplier. Another key topic will be Hungarian oil company MOL’s potential acquisition of Gazprom’s stake in Serbia’s NIS — a move that could help NIS reduce its Russian ownership (Gazprom Neft would still keep 44.9 percent) below 50 percent in hopes of escaping US sanctions. And Orbán is likely to frame this Moscow mission as a stepping stone toward reviving the short-lived idea of a Budapest “peace summit” featuring Trump and Putin.

One European diplomat added that the upcoming meeting has actually been planned for a long time (but organized in secret) and is essentially the regular annual Orbán–Putin meeting — held every year, sometimes even twice — uninterrupted even by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This would be Orbán’s fourth meeting with Putin since 2022 and fifteenth overall. The timing, however, creates diplomatic discomfort for someone else. Orbán’s next high-profile European visitor, Polish president Karol Nawrocki, may face an awkward scene at home. For years, the largest fracture point between the Polish and Hungarian populist right has been Budapest’s pro-Kremlin stance. Nawrocki himself is wanted in Russia — making it even harder to overlook the fact that the hand he shakes in Budapest will have shaken Putin’s only days earlier. As previously reported in Goulash, Orbán and Nawrocki are set to meet in Budapest on December 4.

HUNGARY’S DISGRACED FORMER PRESIDENT GRANTED CITIZENSHIP TO FSB-LINKED RUSSIAN PRIEST

Just when it seemed the saga of former Russian Orthodox bishop Hilarion (Grigory Alfeyev) — removed from Budapest after a sexual abuse scandal and reassigned to Karlovy Vary — had finally ended, a new detail surfaced. As I previously reported in Goulash, Hungarian counterintelligence identified Hilarion (then head of the Russian Orthodox Church in Budapest and formerly Patriarch Kirill’s number two) as either an FSB officer or secret collaborator, a warning shared with Central European intelligence agencies. Despite this, Hungary granted him citizenship, with Deputy PM Zsolt Semjén’s intervention. Together with Czech outlet Deník N, we also published a video of Hilarion firing a standard-issue Russian service weapon at the FSB headquarters shooting range in Moscow. (Hilarion still denies intelligence ties.) Now I can reveal the other key figure who helped turn this alleged abuser and FSB-linked priest into a Hungarian — and thus EU — citizen, shielding him from sanctions or expulsion: Hungary’s disgraced former president, Katalin Novák. 

Novák approved his naturalization in mid-2022, shortly after taking office. Novák resigned last year over a separate scandal after granting clemency in a child-sex-abuse case to a man who helped silence victims — a pardon issued, according to multiple credible reports, against the Hungarian justice minister’s advice. I asked both the current President’s Office and Novák’s secretariat whether she knew about the counterintelligence warnings, whether she overruled them too, and whether Deputy PM Semjén pushed for Hilarion’s naturalization. Both avoided answering substantively. The President’s Office only said it cannot disclose specific naturalization details and emphasized that the president acts only on a ministerial proposal with countersignature. It also did not say whether current president Tamás Sulyok would revoke Hilarion’s citizenship, given the security concerns.

Meanwhile, Novák’s office replied with the following: “As president, Katalin Novák made decisions on all matters related to the acquisition and termination of citizenship based on a proposal by the competent member of the government and with their countersignature, in accordance with the applicable laws. The President had no personal relationship with the individual concerned, and never did; at most, they may have met at protocol events.” This last point matters: long before becoming president, Novák was active as Viktor Orbán’s minister for family affairs in building an international ultraconservative, “pro-family” network in which the Russian Orthodox Church and entities financed by Kremlin-linked oligarchs like Konstantin Malofeyev were key actors. As Hungarian former senior counterintelligence officer Péter Buda recently noted, Hilarion, Novák, and Semjén had all engaged with entities tied to a Russian influence operation disguised as church cooperation and conservative outreach.

SECOND HELPINGS

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

From asylum seeker to guest of honor. Another saga Goulash has been closely following is that of Marcin Romanowski, the former deputy justice minister in the Law and Justice government, who fled a Polish and European arrest warrant on 11 corruption charges and sought political asylum in Viktor Orbán’s Hungary. In the last Goulash, I revealed that Polish prosecutors are investigating not only Romanowski but also potential Hungarian accomplices who helped him escape and hide from justice — a crime punishable by up to five years in prison under the Polish penal code. Meanwhile, on Wednesday evening, Romanowski appeared as the guest of honor at the annual gala in Budapest of the Hungarian government–funded Wacław Felczak Foundation, an institution created to strengthen Hungarian–Polish ties. A not-so-diplomatic middle finger to the Polish government, with possible further diplomatic fallout.

BREWING IN THE BOTTOM — EXCLUSIVE ANALYSIS

VSquare’s Tamara Kaňuchová talked with experts to explain the latest in the dismantling of Slovakia’s democracy.

SLOVAKIA’S CRACKDOWN ON THE RULE OF LAW LIKELY TO TRIGGER EU ACTION. Robert Fico’s government is about to close down the country’s Whistleblower Protection Office by replacing it with a new institution called Office (see our previous interview with its chairwoman here) for the Protection of Victims of Crime and Whistleblowers — all so that its new management could be picked by Robert Fico’s coalition. Alexandra Znášiková from the Prevention and Communication Department from the Whistleblower Protection Office told us that they had no indication that the government was planning such a step. It was interior minister Matúš Šutaj Eštok (Hlas-SD) who out of nowhere submitted the proposal at a government meeting. Šutaj Eštok is actually in an ongoing legal dispute with the Office because he dismissed policeman Ján Čurilla (see more about this here), protected by his status as whistleblower, without consulting the Office. 

“The Office is the only institution that has the power to defend a person who reports corruption, abuse of power, waste of public resources, or other violations of the law. Without an independent institution, these people would be exposed to the threat of dismissal or other retaliatory measures by their employer,” Znášiková said. She also added that an independent whistleblower protection office is also part of Slovakia’s commitments to the European Commission. It’s likely this move could trigger further action by the European Union.

As we covered previously in this newsletter, the Netherlands is already considering an Article 7 motion against Slovakia for the recent constitutional amendment. However, the Dutch urged the European Commission to take action first and start an infringement case, which is what just happened. Slovakia’s constitutional amendment is likely breaching EU law and limiting the rights of the LGBTQ+ community, mainly in the part that asserts that the national law comes before the EU law in things related to the “national identity and cultural-ethical questions.” “In our opinion, and as stated in our open letter, the latest amendments to the Slovak Constitution are not compatible with Article 2 of the EU Treaty, the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, the principle of the primacy of EU law, or international human rights conventions,” said Karolína Babická, a senior legal adviser at the International Commission of Jurists.

Slovakia now has two months to respond. After that, the Commission will evaluate the matter, after which point Slovakia would likely face the European Court of Justice. “(The Court) may then decide that Slovakia has violated EU law. If Slovakia fails to comply even after the judgment, the CJEU may impose financial sanctions — one-time or regularly imposed fines until compliance is achieved,” said Babická. However, this court procedure does not interfere with the Article 7 proceedings the Dutch government considers triggering. “The most likely scenario is an intensive dialogue between the Commission and Slovakia, with Bratislava ultimately being forced to clarify or soften the constitutional text,” Babická concluded.

MORE FROM OUR PARTNERS

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

GUPTA’S STEEL EMPIRE CONTINUES TO COLLAPSE, WITH LIBERTY OSTRAVA ALLEGEDLY PLAYING A ROLE IN THE FRAUD. Investigace’s article focuses on the Czech arm of the businesses of Sanjiv Gupta, once hailed as the “savior of steel,” who oversaw a multinational steel empire that collapsed across several countries and cost thousands of jobs, even as he personally prospered. (Text in Czech.)

CLOSED HOSPITAL DOORS HIDE HUNGARY’S HEALTHCARE CRISIS. Direkt36’s new investigation shows that a lack of qualified staff has forced many hospitals to close entire wards, causing serious problems in Hungary’s healthcare system. (Text in Hungarian and English.)

FRIENDS OF FIDESZ COMMIT UNPRECEDENTED PRIVACY VIOLATIONS IN TISZA APP SCANDAL. Átlátszó’s article explains how a data leak involving 200,000 sympathizers of Hungary’s Tisza opposition party is being framed by pro-government actors as proof of the opposition’s negligence, even as these government-aligned actors commit far more serious offenses by using the stolen data to publicly identify and implicitly threaten people who registered with the party. (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.

CORRUPTION DESTROYS YOU SLOWLY OR ALL AT ONCE. A CONVERSATION WITH TOMÁŠ MADLEŇÁK. The author of many of the great Slovakia stories you read on VSquare talks in this excellent podcast interview about his investigations, his country, and himself. Listen to it on Weight of the World.

5 TIPS ON HOW TO (MORE) SAFELY INVESTIGATE IN AUTHORITARIAN STATES. My Direkt36 colleague András Pethő took part in this vibrant discussion among investigative journalists from all corners of the world at the GIJC in Kuala Lumpur.

AT GIJC25, NOBEL PRIZE LAUREATE MARIA RESSA CALLS FOR ‘RADICAL COLLABORATION’ TO COMBAT DISINFORMATION AND PRESERVE PRESS FREEDOM. Maria Ressa — Nobel Peace Prize laureate and co-founder of Rappler — opened the Global Investigative Journalism Conference in Malaysia with a forceful appeal for investigative journalists to embrace “radical collaboration” as a strategy for impact and survival amid growing pressure. Here’s what she said.

NOBEL LAUREATE URGES JOURNALISTS TO INVESTIGATE THE SYSTEMS AND ENABLERS THAT FOSTER CORRUPTION WORLDWIDE. Nobel-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz urged investigative journalists to scrutinize Western financial systems and the rules that enable the laundering of wealth from the Global South. Check out what he had to say at GIJC here.

This was VSquare’s 54th 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