On March 5, TEK, the anti-terrorism police force, detained seven Ukrainian employees of Oschadbank who were passing through Hungary while transporting gold and cash from Austria to Ukraine.
According to Kyiv, it was a normal transfer of state assets. However, Hungarian authorities described it as financing the "Ukrainian war mafia," without providing further details.
The seven men were held for just over a day before being deported to Ukraine. During that time, one of the men, a former employee of Ukraine's security service, the SBU, was given a forced injection, according to information provided to The Guardian.
Still seized
The sources say it was probably a sedative intended to increase the likelihood that the man would cooperate during interrogation. Traces of a substance comparable to the types of "truth serum" used by the Soviet KGB were detected in blood samples taken from the man when he returned to Ukraine, one of the newspaper's sources says.
The information about an involuntary injection of unclear content is confirmed by a lawyer representing the detained men, and has also been previously mentioned by the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry.
Hungarian authorities have not responded to The Guardian's questions about the reports.
The seized assets are still being held in Hungary.
Sensitive location
There is great irritation between Ukraine and Hungary. Budapest, which has an exemption from the EU's ban on Russian oil imports, is demanding that a pipeline carrying Russian oil through Ukraine be repaired after it was damaged in a Russian attack at the end of January.
Hungary is refusing to release the EU's already delayed multi-billion-euro loan to Ukraine until that happens, which has drawn strong criticism from other member states.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán had promised not to stop the loan; only Hungary was exempted.
