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Jan 20 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
1/ More than 170 Hungarian generals and senior military officers have been forced into early retirement in recent days by Hungary's MoD, led by Kristóf Szalay-Bobrovniczky. He is a former business partner of Transmashholding, a Russian state-owned company.
telex.hu/belfold/2023/0…
2/ A new government decree has allowed the Minister of Defense to unilaterally terminate the service of soldiers who have reached the age of 45 and have at least 25 years of actual service, with two months' notice. telex.hu/belfold/2023/0…
3/ According to @Telexhu, the minister "dismissed members of the Defence Staff en masse. (...) One source said (...) that at least a hundred colonels, generals had been given unilateral dismissals, while another said that 157 (...) with immediate effect." telex.hu/belfold/2023/0…
4/ According to opposition MP Ágnes Vadai, "this means there is a de-NATOisation going on in the Hungarian Defence Forces at the moment", as "the 45-year-old officers and generals are soldiers with international experience, who speak languages and have been socialised in NATO".

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More from @panyiszabolcs

Szabolcs Panyi Profile picture
Oct 3, 2022
Breaking: Viktor Orbán's MPs voted NO on the opposition's proposal to hold a parliamentary vote on the 🇫🇮&🇸🇪 NATO accession tomorrow. Opposition parties are losing their patience as Hungary & Turkey are the last NATO members not to ratify the enlargement.
nepszava.hu/3171195_nato-s…
2/ Orbán has already signaled his reluctance this summer, when he said that Hungary pays special attention to Turkey's reservations.

Orbán is close to Erdogan, so that's an explanation. However, he seems to be close to Putin too - and that's another one.
3/ The treaties of the 🇫🇮🇸🇪 accession have been submitted to the Hungarian parliament on July 14 already. Orbán's MPs could have passed them in the summer as there was even an extraordinary session. However, the bills didn't even advance to a pre-plenary vote, committee level.
Read 8 tweets
Szabolcs Panyi Profile picture
Sep 27, 2022
Former Hungarian MEP found guilty of espionage, sentenced to 5 years in prison: euobserver.com/tickers/156154

Béla Kovács (nickname 'KGBéla') was outed as a Russian spy in 2014 already.

Hungarian authorities left him off the hook - he's been living in Moscow for years.

THREAD👇
2/ Béla Kovács is your most average looking politician, yet he has an extraordinary secret life. Like, for example, he married a Russian lady who already had at least two other husbands at the same time - including a Japanese nuclear scientist. Background:
index.hu/english/2014/0…
3/ Kovács was a "businessman" living in Russian when he returned to Hungary in the 2000s, opened a salad bar, then became a financial supporter of the far-right Jobbik party. He bought his influence with money, turned Jobbik into a pro-Kremlin party & became their MEP in Brussels
Read 12 tweets
Szabolcs Panyi Profile picture
Aug 23, 2022
There’s an important national security angle to Orbán’s purchase of mobile carrier Vodafone Hungary, the frontrunner in 5G network development in the country:

Vodafone’s networks are running on Chinese Huawei equipment.

Why is this an issue? Thread🧵
reuters.com/markets/deals/…
2/ Vodafone, a 🇬🇧 company, has been deploying Chinese network equipment everywhere, not just in Hungary. However, national security risks associated with 🇨🇳 companies’ 5G technology resulted in a pressure campaign both from the 🇺🇸&🇬🇧governments.
3/ Meanwhile, 🇭🇺 has become a European hub for Huawei. Here they have their

-largest manufacturing operations outside of 🇨🇳
-regional R&D center
-strategic cooperationg agreement & full support of the gov’t
-participation in sensitive, state-run networks
direkt36.hu/en/csendben-cs…
Read 8 tweets
Szabolcs Panyi Profile picture
Jul 27, 2022
In his controversial speech, Orbán also said that "the statement that Russia will not stop at Ukraine is a weak propaganda talking point used by Ukraine. (...)It lacks any basis in reality." I'm curious how Poland's gov't feels about this. Some questions should be asked. THREAD👇 Image
2/ First of all, does Poland sincerely think that they're more important to Orbán than Russia? Another quote from his speech: "...post-Westerners did their best to dismantle the Visegrád Four. In addition, war has intervened, and this has shaken the Polish-Hungarian cooperation."
3/ Seeing how Hungary handled the Russian hacking of its MFA's internal networks, does Poland - and other CEE allies who see Russia as a threat - still trust Hungary when it comes to sharing sensitive information - not to talk about intelligence sharing? direkt36.hu/en/putyin-hekk…
Read 9 tweets
Szabolcs Panyi Profile picture
Jul 20, 2022
Rule of law in Hungary: I have been investigated by our data protection authority because of my reporting on #Pegasus surveillances and after a complaint by an intelligence officer who was likely the spyware's operator. Story & documents (in 🇭🇺): media1.hu/2022/07/20/viz…

Thread👇
2/ As part of our #Pegasus surveillance investigations at @direkt36, I wrote a story on probably the most unlikely target: an intelligence officer at the Special Service for National Security (SSNS), which conducts secret surveillance and interceptions. direkt36.hu/en/kemszoftver…
3/ I had doubts that he was a real target, and well-informed sources told me that this guy probably just operated Pegasus, and entered his own number while trying to test the spyware. But we easily identified him because someone saved his name, title and position in CallApp (LOL)
Read 12 tweets
Szabolcs Panyi Profile picture
Jul 15, 2022
NEW: During the US presidential election in 2016, Russian hackers used a Hungarian gov't computer to disguise international data traffic needed for attacks against the US. Then it all happened again in 2020.

Orbán's reaction? 🤷‍♂️.

My new @direkt36 story: direkt36.hu/en/nyugati-szo…
2/ This was our original story uncovering the Russian hackings of the Hungarian foreign ministry's IT networks. At the time, the government called my reporting a 'campaign lie'. A few days later, both PM Orbán & his MFA acknowledged the Russian hacking.🤷‍♂️
3/ Reactions to our story:

”We have previously warned Hungary and other NATO Allies about the potential for Russia to conduct malicious cyber activity against the United States and our Allies and partners.” @usembbudapest
Read 9 tweets

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