In recent years, Viktor Orbán has earned a reputation as the most openly anti-Ukrainian leader in the European Union. By 2025, Ukrainophobia had become not just a rhetorical tool but a structural element of Hungary’s foreign policy. Criticism of Kyiv evolved into the demonisation of ordinary Ukrainians, while Hungarians were repeatedly warned of a manufactured “Ukrainian threat”.
Against this backdrop, pro-Kremlin propaganda made a calculated attempt to push hostility toward Ukraine back to the centre of Hungarian public debate. The instrument was familiar but refined: forged “leaked” documents, planted through a Russia-friendly Serbian outlet with a long record of cooperation with Russian information operations, and then quietly handed to Hungary’s pro-Fidesz media ecosystem.
For a moment, the plan worked, and the damage was inflicted.
The SBU Fake Letter That Looked Almost Real
The operation revolved around two allegedly leaked internal letters, supposedly exchanged between the head of the Security Service of Ukraine, Vasyl Malyuk, and senior Ukrainian officials. The letters claimed that the SBU was preparing provocations and repression against ethnic Hungarians in Ukraine and even interfering in Hungarian parliamentary elections.
These documents were later exposed as fakes by European Pravda in a detailed forensic analysis. Yet the craftsmanship of the forgery explains why it briefly slipped through political and editorial filters.
The texts were written in competent Ukrainian, used real bureaucratic phrasing, and followed authentic templates of Ukrainian interagency correspondence. They even included a QR code resembling an electronic signature from ASKOD, Ukraine’s closed government document-management system, something ordinary for official correspondence but impossible for outsiders to verify.
In other words, the material was not the crude propaganda of earlier years. It was designed to survive a first glance.
Forged Letters About “Repressions Against Ethnic Hungarians” in Ukraine
The first fake document was allegedly addressed to the then-Minister of Defence of Ukraine, Denys Shmyhal. In it, Malyuk supposedly requested wreckage from three or four downed Russian Shahed drones, bizarrely explaining that they would be used in an SBU operation “in areas densely populated by Ukrainian citizens of Hungarian origin.”
The letter also asked the Ministry of Defence to conduct unspecified measures in Zakarpattia, a Ukrainian region with a Hungarian minority and a frequent target of pro-Orbán narratives, allegedly to justify stricter martial law.
Then prime minister Yulia Svyrydenko allegedly received the second document, which was longer and even more provocative. It described supposed plans to interfere in Hungarian elections: opening mail, destroying postal ballots for ethnic Hungarians, forcing mass mobilisation to prevent them from voting, and blocking their travel to Hungary.
The internal logic of these claims collapses under minimal scrutiny. Such requests are nonsense procedurally, politically, and legally. They would never exist in real ASKOD correspondence, nor could the head of the SBU unilaterally propose such actions.
Serbian Dodgy Proxy-Outlet as the Launchpad
The “leak” first appeared on January 5 on a marginal and dodgy Serbian website called Vaseljenska. The site is obscure even in Serbia and known in Ukraine almost exclusively to fact-checkers and analysts of Russian hybrid influence and disinformation campaigns in the Balkans.
Its editor-in-chief, Vesna Vejzović, previously worked for the Serbian branch of News-Front, one of the best-known Russian propaganda projects linked to the Kremlin’s security services. Both Vejzović and Vaseljenska have repeatedly featured in anti-Ukrainian operations attributed to Russian influence actors.
The headline left little room for neutrality: “Exclusive SBU documents: Zelensky ordered the persecution of Hungarians in Ukraine for supporting Orbán.” The article accused Ukraine of “fascist-like policies” and ended with the hope that “Zelensky’s plans would fail.”
This piece was not journalism. It was an information warfare operation.
The Hungarian Echo Chamber Activates
For nine days, the fake attracted little attention. Then, on January 14 at 6:40 a.m., Hungary’s pro-government outlet Mandiner suddenly “discovered” the story and retold it for Hungarian readers, presenting it as evidence of Ukrainian interference in Hungary’s elections.
Mandiner is not a marginal platform. Alongside Magyar Nemzet, it is widely regarded as a key media pillar of Fidesz. Unlike Magyar Nemzet, which typically upholds basic journalistic discipline, Mandiner frequently defies party boundaries with fervour.
According to media monitoring by Insight News, Mandiner was also among the Hungarian outlets most prone to reposting or quoting Russian propaganda sources.
After Mandiner, Origo followed. And then, tellingly, the spread stopped.
Amplification of Vaseljenska’s Fakes
In earlier years, similar fabrications from Vaseljenska triggered full-scale amplification across Hungary’s government-aligned media. In 2020, for example, the same outlet distributed a fake video of supposed Ukrainian nationalists threatening Hungarians, provoking official outrage in Budapest.
In September 2025, Vaseljenska published an absurd “secret Ukrainian plan” for a media war against Hungary, complete with an English-language document falsely branded as confidential correspondence of the Ukrainian foreign ministry. The entire pro-Fidesz media ecosystem, including Magyar Nemzet, picked up the story despite its obvious flaws.
This time, there was a noticeably muted reaction.
The fake was better executed, but the political environment had shifted. Orbán’s government, while still critical of Ukraine, appears less eager to escalate hostility at any cost. The absence of massive reposts suggests there was no clear signal from the top to weaponise the story fully.
The Fatal Error That Gave It Away
Despite the improved forgery, the authors made a basic mistake. Both letters referenced “Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 1120 of September 11, 2025,” allegedly establishing a “Special Working Group on Parliamentary Elections in Hungary.”
Ukraine’s official legislative database shows that Resolution No. 1120 is dated September 10 and concerns an entirely different matter: frozen Russian assets.
This single detail collapses the entire construction. It is the kind of error that only appears when outsiders imitate a system they do not truly understand.
And it was far from the only inconsistency. The bureaucratic logic was wrong, the chain of authority implausible, and the very idea of such correspondence absurd.
Why Did Pro-Orbán Media Swallow It?
The lingering question is not who created the fake; the trail leads clearly toward Russia’s Serbian information networks, but why parts of Hungary’s media ecosystem accepted it.
The answer likely lies in habit. Years of ideological alignment with anti-Ukrainian narratives lowered editorial defences. When a story fits the expected worldview, verification becomes optional.
This time, however, the reaction stopped halfway. That may indicate fatigue, recalibration, or quiet recognition that not every Russian provocation still serves Orbán’s interests.
A Test Case for Information Warfare
This episode shows how Kremlin disinformation has evolved. It is no longer always loud or crude. It can be patient, technically competent, and aimed at exploiting existing political reflexes rather than creating new ones.
It also shows that those reflexes, even in Hungary, are no longer guaranteed.
For Ukraine and Europe, the lesson is uncomfortable but necessary: the most dangerous fakes are not the ones that look ridiculous but the ones that look just plausible enough to be repeated before anyone asks why.
