A transcript of a leaked telephone conversation between Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov shows that, on December 14, 2023, Szijjártó called Lavrov in the middle of an EU summit about the start of membership talks with Ukraine. “Sometimes well-intentioned, direct blackmail is the best option,” the Russian Foreign Minister is reported to have told his Hungarian counterpart.
In another leaked phone conversation, it appears that Hungary's Foreign Minister provided Russia's Foreign Minister with a document outlining the EU's negotiations on Ukraine's ongoing EU application.
Ukraine applied for EU membership at the end of February 2022, shortly after Russia's full-scale invasion of the country.
At the end of March this year, The Washington Post revealed that Szijjártó had regularly called Lavrov to provide intelligence on the EU's internal affairs.
