A Hungarian think tank has accused Ukraine of interfering in the country’s upcoming parliamentary elections, citing what it describes as a coordinated network of social media accounts shaping the online debate.
The report, published by the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs (HIIA) and written by Philip Pilkington, says its findings “strongly suggest” that foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI) is already taking place around the election—and that most of it is from Ukraine and, to a lesser extent, Serbia and Georgia.
Brussels has spent years using the concept of FIMI to describe campaigns attributed to Russia or China. However, the HIIA is now accusing Ukraine, an EU ally and the main recipient of European political and financial support, of conducting a similar operation.
This is not a minor allegation. In January, Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán accused Kyiv of attempting to interfere in the elections and summoned the Ukrainian ambassador. By late March, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó had sharpened the rhetoric further: “Never before have foreign intelligence services intervened in Hungarian parliamentary elections in such an open, crude and blatant way.”
The accusations come as Hungary has become the principal obstacle within the European Union to full-scale involvement in the war in Ukraine. In Brussels, Orbán is widely accused of being Russia’s main ally inside the bloc, while in Budapest, officials argue external pressure is aimed at replacing Fidesz with a more compliant government.
The report highlights several X accounts active against Fidesz and supportive of the opposition, including @splendid_pete, @SzabadonMagyar, @fridayfella1, and @NAFO_Hungary. According to the HIIA, these accounts display a pattern very different from that of “organic” Hungarian accounts such as opposition journalist Panyi Szabolcs or the anonymous account @KMediaEng.
Organic accounts draw most of their followers from Hungary or neighbouring countries. The others do not.
“With the exception of NAFO Hungary, all these accounts have an enormous number of followers from Ukraine,” the report says. The most striking case is that of @splendid_pete, a highly active English-language account discussing Hungarian politics. According to the HIIA, it has almost as many followers in Ukraine as in Hungary and follows more Ukrainian accounts than Hungarian ones.
The authors argue that this suggests an effort to link Hungary’s online debate to Ukrainian political networks. The report adds that @SzabadonMagyar has an unusually high number of followers in Serbia, while @fridayfella1 appears to be more closely linked to Georgian and Ukrainian users than to Hungarians.
The investigation also examines the language used by these accounts. While accounts such as Panyi Szabolcs focus on corruption, domestic politics, or government decisions, the others rely on a far more aggressive tone, dominated by insults, personal attacks, and repeated references to Russia and Ukraine.
“Pete appears to be primarily a trolling or abuse account,” the report concludes. According to the HIIA, the accounts are closely connected to one another and consistently hostile toward the Hungarian government.
That point matters because it suggests a relatively closed structure. The accounts analysed are far more connected to each other than to the broader Hungarian political debate. They are not part of a normal conversation, the report argues, but rather of a parallel network attempting to influence it from outside.
The 2026 elections will not be ordinary elections. Orbán faces his greatest political challenge in years, while the opposition led by Péter Magyar has succeeded in consolidating a broader protest vote than in previous campaigns. But the real issue goes beyond who wins.
With the election approaching, the dispute is no longer just about online activity, but about who shapes Hungary’s political direction—and whether external actors are playing a role in that process.
