Protecting Sovereignty the Russian Way – also known as, protecting regime interests and targeting dissent

Zsuzsa Bodnár from the Göd-Ért Association. Miklós Ligeti from Transparency International Hungary. Balázs Tóth and Tamás Bodoky from Átlátszó. These people are all representatives of the organizations first investigated by the Sovereignty Protection Office, established last year. They speak out in our short video, while historian Krisztián Ungváry provides geopolitical context.

“The threat posed by the Sovereignty Protection Office is immense—both to Hungary’s sovereignty and to fundamental human rights,” explained Ungváry. “It’s a life-and-death issue. Currently, it’s toothless, but the moment it gains regulatory powers, that will change.” He warned: “The moment such an office is authorized to decide which public figures’ political opinions constitute counterintelligence problems, we will have reached the point of Putin’s Russia.”

The body contributes little for national security, but it does much to serve political goals like suppressing civil liberties and oppositional voices.

“Essentially, this is about adopting the Russian model,” said Ungváry. “In normal circumstances, issues related to sovereignty are managed by counterintelligence in every country. If another country engages in covert methods to practice influence, that is an intelligence issue. It should be addressed by intelligence agencies, and those involved should be held accountable for such activities. The establishment of a separate office indicates—this is the core of the Russian model—that many cases exist that would not legally constitute influence in a normal country or be illegitimate. So how do you make them punishable?”

This imitation of the Russian model is not a result of direct Russian pressure.

Prime Minister Orbán did not need Russian intervention at all – he came to this idea all by his lonesome.

“While the outcome might be similar [to Russia], the essence lies in the Hungarian actor, namely the Prime Minister, recognizing that these tools seem to be the most effective way to ensure his permanence,” explained Ungváry. “In Russia, elections are nominally multi-party, and there is political opposition. Some opposition figures are even rewarded with positions, much like in Hungary. Some opposition and public figures have quietly fallen. If the NER [Hungarian government system] can structure its opposition, as it has demonstrated in electoral results, then the primary enemy lies outside parliament—in civil society. And civil society must be made an example of.”

Ungváry warns that “if the situation continues to move toward the Russian model, the Sovereignty Protection Office will eventually gain regulatory powers, with all the consequences that would entail.”

The video in Hungarian

The investigated speak

Zsuzsa Bodnár, founder of the Göd-Ért Association, believes that the name of the game was intimidation. Her association operates on behalf of local residents – a far cry from the foreign interests they were accused to tangling with.

“The association had been mentioned in pro-government media a year earlier, labelled as serving foreign interests because it opposed the government’s battery industry plans,” she explained. “At the time, there was no sovereignty protection law, but it was clear that the government disapproved of our activities.”

Bodnár explained their work:

“It’s in the Hungarian people’s interest to know the factory’s emissions data,

to demand the publication of noise and water pollution measurements, and to ensure that hazardous zones are designated. We fight for transparency and accountability.”

Miklós Ligeti, legal director of Transparency International Hungary, described the Sovereignty Protection Office as “a political communications tool with no real function or motivation to address genuine threats. It serves to protect the regime, not national interests. It serves NER interests. It can harass anyone and fabricate accusations, leaving targets grateful that worse hasn’t happened.”

Ligeti criticized the office’s report on Transparency International as baseless – a document where they simply wrote about their own fantastical bogeyman that is lefty-liberal foreign interventionism. They continue to assume that any organization that criticizes the government is doing so not for truth-finding purposes, but due to some Machiavellian behind-the-scenes puppeteering from abroad.

“They asked absurd questions, like what we did in exchange for funding from the Dutch embassy and how that has influenced the Netherlands’ favorable position in the Corruption Perceptions Index,” explained Ligeti.

To interject and assuage any concerned reader at this point, it is important to emphasize that it is unlikely that the Dutch embassy has been paying Transparency International to bump itself up in the Corruption Perception Index, no matter how nefarious the Dutch embassy may or may not appear.

This harassment of civil society groups, independent journalists and academics and the smear campaigns are not new. They have become a consistent feature of the last decade.

Legitimate threats to sovereignity

“It happened in several stages. Front-page appearances as Soros agents and then laws against foreign-funded organizations,” said Ligeti. “Some of the government’s behavior has become harder and harder to explain, even to their own supporters. Accusations of corruption are difficult to slap away – it is a lot easier to simply dismiss the sources of the accusations. If a source is labelled as inaccurate, unfounded, a foreign agent, or a traitor to the nation enough – if officials with big black cars and big black sunglasses issue statements without any real grounds – eventually, the consumer will believe that these sources are foreign-funded liars who aim to hurt Hungarian interests.”

Ironically, according to Ligeti, there are significant sovereignty threats – but from very different sources.

“China imposes conditions on the Hungarian government and the Hungarian state regarding which suppliers it can work with, like the construction of the Belgrade-Budapest railway,” he noted. “Whether the Hungarian state or state-funded companies can respond to data requests related to this project depends on a position that must be formed through prior consultation with the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”

Transparency International is also concerned that the Russian state-backed cyberattack, “which deeply infiltrated the sensitive IT backbone of our Ministry of Foreign Affairs, raises certain sovereignty protection concerns. We submitted both of these cases to the Sovereignty Protection Office in the form of petitions, requesting action. However, we received no response whatsoever.”

Instead they must have been busy investigating the Dutch.

Independent journalism targeted

Tamás Bodoky, editor-in-chief of Átlátszó, also mentions the “Russian playbook” in connection with the Sovereignty Protection Office’s investigations. However, he believes that “this is still just a propaganda campaign, which we’ve become accustomed to. Since 2014, these have been regular and nearly continuous. Ever since the propaganda campaigns targeting the Norwegian Civil Fund and the Open Society Foundations began, Átlátszó has also been regularly in the crosshairs.”

While the Sovereignty Protection Office currently lacks the authority to impose penalties, its false claims about Átlátszó, disseminated relentlessly through the propaganda press, aim to “discredit Átlátszó in the eyes of the public. If we publish an article tomorrow about the environmental problems caused by battery factories, people won’t believe us – that’s the goal.”

“Public-interest watchdog journalism is purely about serving the interests of ordinary people,” said Bodoky. “We investigate how state authorities or the governing party manage taxpayer money and natural resources. In doing so, we strive to represent the interests of average citizens against those in power.”

It’s one of those pesky things journalism does in working democracies – check power.

Bodoky stated: “The Sovereignty Protection Office was ostensibly established to monitor and prevent foreign funds from entering election campaigns after claims that such funds influenced the 2022 elections. Yet, its first two investigations targeted Transparency International Hungary and Átlátszó—two anti-corruption civil organizations that operate independently of political parties and do not participate in election campaigns.”

Regarding the Office’s report on Átlátszó, Bodoky described it as “a spy novel, pure fiction.”

“Honestly, I can only laugh at it now,” he said. “It claims that Átlátszó engages in intelligence and disinformation activities, uploads files to American servers, and produces secret reports. None of this is true. The report contains false statements that, if Átlátszó were to publish them, would immediately result in lawsuits. We believe that no state office has the right to fabricate lies about anyone, and we are confident we have a strong case to hold them accountable in court.”

“It’s entirely possible we’ll end up on blue government billboards, used to scare the public,” Bodoky added.

Balázs Tóth, Átlátszó’s legal representative, said that “there’s little else Átlátszó can do but file a personal rights lawsuit against the Sovereignty Protection Office. The case will focus on having the court determine that these claims are false and have damaged our reputation.”

The lawyer believes the purpose of the Sovereignty Protection Office is clear:

“The aim is to concentrate billions of forints, seemingly through legal means, to discredit organizations that the government disapproves of.

There’s no need for shady tricks or semi-legal and illegal methods to finance smear campaigns anymore. Instead, there’s a formally legitimate budget allocated for this purpose in the state budget. That’s it—it can’t be anything else, given that the Office has no other function apart from running these communications campaigns.”

Regarding the future of the Sovereignty Protection Office, Tóth outlined two possible scenarios.

“The first is that it will cease to exist in a year and a half because it will become evident that this is utterly absurd, and an infringement procedure by the European Union will lead to its dissolution based on an EU decision,” he said. “The second scenario is that the government doubles down, as it often does, and decides to escalate its powers. In that case, beyond issuing reports, the Office would gain actual authority based on its unchecked claims—for example, banning organizations, imposing fines, issuing subpoenas, seizing assets, or conducting searches.”

He concluded, “This office will either be dismantled entirely or wade further into autocracy. We’ll either move closer to Europe or to Russia. The fate of this office will be a telling litmus test.”