Peter Magyar, leader of the opposition party Tisza which won the parliamentary elections and Hungary’s future Prime Minister, has accused current Foreign Minister Peter Szijjártó of urgently destroying classified documents related to EU sanctions against Russia.
According to Magyar, on April 13th at around 10 a.m., Szijjártó appeared at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building in Budapest together with his closest colleagues and began mass-destroying materials — including via shredders — related to EU sanctions policy.
“Many thought Szijjártó had disappeared. I can reassure everyone: he is here. Since this morning he has been at the Foreign Ministry, where Russian hackers have been allowed access to computer systems for several years, and now they are destroying documents related to sanctions,” Magyar stated at a press conference.
His opponents link these actions to an attempt to conceal traces of close cooperation between the Hungarian Foreign Ministry and the Kremlin. Shortly before the elections, the investigative project VSquare published audio recordings of Szijjártó’s phone conversations with Sergei Lavrov and other Russian officials. In them, the minister:
coordinated with Russia the blocking of Ukraine’s EU accession;
lobbied for the removal of sanctions against Russian oligarchs and their associated companies and banks at Lavrov’s direct request;
reported on the removal of 72 Russian legal entities from the sanctions list and offered further assistance in easing restrictions.
In particular, at Lavrov’s request, Szijjártó sought the removal from the sanctions list of the sister of Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov — Gulbakhor Ismailova — which ultimately occurred.
Opposition sources also report that during the document “purge,” Szijjártó was allegedly accompanied by an unknown Russian national whose identity is not known to ministry staff. Hungary’s future Foreign Minister Anita Orbán has already warned Szijjártó that the unlawful destruction of state documents is impermissible.
The Hungarian Foreign Ministry itself has yet to respond to the accusations.
Peter Magyar has promised that the new government will put an end to Budapest’s “warm relations” with Moscow and will conduct a thorough review of all actions taken by the previous administration.