Minister of Foreign Affairs Péter Szijjártó manages the crisis in Belarus on a luxury yacht in the Adriatic

The Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs is spending this summer seemingly feverish, just visit his Facebook page to make sure: in an office environment, in a suit, with a mobile phone in his hand, he has been discussing the situation in Minsk with high-ranking foreign politicians and foreign minister colleagues in recent days. In comparison, on Sunday, August 16, we saw and photographed the Minister on the Lady MRD, a luxury yacht owned by László Szíjj, on the Adriatic, Croatia, 25 kilometers south of Biograd Na Moru, below the Kornati Islands, with his family on vacation.

“Without any exaggeration, the lines are burning at both the prime minister and foreign minister level in connection with developments in Minsk. This morning we spoke to the three Baltic foreign ministers, Edgars Rinkēvičs, Estonian colleagues Urmas Reinsalu and Lithuanian colleague Linas Linkevicius, and then I consulted with the prime minister, who talked to Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki over the phone” – foreign minister Péter Szíjjártó posted on Facebook on Monday, holding the phone in an office environment.

“European political public remains concerned about the situation in Minsk. I also talked about this over the phone today with Josep Borrell, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Heiko Maas, my German foreign minister colleague”- he posts on Sunday, holding his mobile phone in a suit in a meeting room. The Hungarian government has previously been widely criticized for failing to speak out about the Belarusian crisis for days.

On the same day, Sunday 16 August, we saw and photographed the Minister on a luxury yacht, the Lady MRD, owned by a Maltese offshore company owned by Hungarian billionaire László Szíjj in the Adriatic, Croatia, 25 km south of Biograd Na Moru, about 15 kilometers from the mainland.

According to our assumption, the Minister of Foreign Affairs was resting with his family on the luxury yacht for a couple of days then. The Lady MRD was in the port of Sibenik from 8 to 11 August, from there on the 12th he went to the nearby bay of Split and then spent the noon hours waiting in the bay below the airport. Also on this day around 10 am the OE-LEM private plane arrived in Split. This Austrian-registered luxury aircraft was previously used by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán too.

The Lady MRD then set out from Split, anchored on Vis, on the shores of Komiza, on Thursday 13 August, then turned north and spent a few days off the coast in the bays of the Kornati Islands. On Sunday morning, he picked up the anchor near the island of Zut and headed back south.

We scouted the Lady MRD luxury yacht on Sunday with a 2 × 225 horsepower rentable dinghy:

Szijjártó Péter külügyminiszter Szíjj László adriai luxusjachtján bekkeli ki a fehérorosz válságot from atlatszo.hu on Vimeo.

Our meeting, the proximity of the light and fast rentable dinghy, was visibly unexpected for the Minister, so it took about 5-10 minutes before two crew members were put on the water with a jetski to find out who and for what purpose had taken pictures of the boat and its passengers.

What followed was also eloquent: a quarter of an hour later, the Lady MRD turned off AIS (Automatic Identification System), the most important piece of maritime navigation equipment, and the luxury yacht disappeared from the map.

We have written many times in recent years that the Austrian-registered luxury private jet with the Austrian registration OE-LEM, also used by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, has repeatedly flown exactly to the Croatian coast, where the Maltese-registered luxury yacht Lady MRD was. We also took photos and drone recordings of the HUF 7 billion luxury yacht.

Hungarian government elite, including Orban, uses luxury yacht and private jet registered abroad

Atlatszo has been tracking two luxury vehicles all summer and, in doing so has documented where the leadership of the governing party and their business partners spent their summer vacations.

However, the real owner of the yacht, which is popular with the Hungarian governing elite, has been hidden by a Maltese offshore company – so far, because the identity of the real owners of Maltese offshore companies has recently been made public thanks to an EU anti-money laundering directive. The database reveals that the real owner of L&L Charter Ltd., which operates yachts called Artemy and Lady MRD, is László Szíjj, a billionaire businessman from Tiszakécske, who has won many state and municipal contracts with his construction companies, and is estimated to be the fourth richest Hungarian.

László Szíjj is the beneficial owner of the Malta offshore company in posession of luxury yachts used by the Hungarian government elite

Over the last two years, we have written several times about the fact that the Austrian-registered luxury private jet with the Austrian registration OE-LEM, also used by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, has flown to the Croatian coast of the Adriatic exactly where the Maltese-registered luxury yacht, Lady MRD was located.

Photos, videos and text by Dániel Németh