Leaked recording: Hungarian Foreign Minister Szijjártó aided Putin and pro-Kremlin businesspeople – UPDATE: Usmanov’s legal representative

Péter Szijjártó, Hungary’s Foreign Minister, stands accused of leaking sensitive details from European Union decision-making processes. According to the Polish Prime Minister, this is common knowledge in Brussels, to the extent that Hungary is sometimes excluded from negotiations. A leaked recording has now surfaced, revealing Szijjártó’s strikingly subservient tone when addressing Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov.

Leaked recording details

Warsaw-based investigative outlet VSquare, which specialises in Central European affairs, released the audio this morning, dating it to a conversation on 30 August 2024 between Szijjártó and Lavrov. It was Lavrov who initiated the call, keen to inform his counterpart that Hungarian coverage dominated Russian front pages.

Szijjártó’s response was oddly defensive (“Did I say something wrong?”) but Lavrov reassured him, praising his pragmatic defence of Hungary’s interests. The Russian then cut to the chase: a request to remove Gulbahor Ismailova, sister of Alisher Usmanov, from the EU sanctions list at Usmanov’s behest. A close Putin associate with mining, industrial, media and telecoms interests, Usmanov’s fortune stands at USD 3.4 billion, per VSquare.

Szijjártó outlined in detail the steps he planned, jointly with Slovakia, to secure her delisting.

Subservient tone?

Listeners may note a stark contrast in demeanour. Lavrov speaks with cheerful yet measured authority, pausing for replies, while Szijjártó races ahead, interrupting and anticipating thoughts in a manner that many will perceive as obsequious, far from the poise of equal partners.

The recording’s later, unreleased portion reportedly features banter over Gabrielius Landsbergis, then Lithuania’s foreign minister, who claimed at an EU meeting that 12% of rockets striking Ukraine were EU-funded. Szijjártó countered that the true figure was worse, as not only Hungary and Slovakia but other states bought Russian oil, via India and Kazakhstan.

Check out the recording:

Shadow fleet intervention

VSquare also obtained another recording of Szijjártó pressing Russia’s Deputy Energy Minister Pavel Sorokin to exempt the Russian shadow fleet’s ships and firms from sanctions. Sorokin’s designated role under Putin includes evading EU measures.

In a 30 June 2025 exchange, Szijjártó lamented the EU withholding documents on 2Rivers, a Dubai-based Russian firm trading sanctioned oil, owing to no Hungarian link: another entity he sought to delist.

Sanctions package briefing

He went further, previewing the EU’s 18th sanctions package for Sorokin, boasting of having removed 72 Russian interests while 128 remained. Szijjártó solicited data from Sorokin to justify exemptions, admitting not all had Hungarian ties. VSquare deems this blatant favouritism to Moscow, devoid of national interest; he sought similar arguments for Russian banks on another occasion.

Limited impact unclear

The 18th package passed after weeks of Hungarian and Slovak blocking; 2Rivers was added, a blow to the shadow fleet. VSquare concedes Szijjártó’s precise influence remains opaque. Yet Usmanov’s sister was ultimately removed.

An EU diplomat told VSquare that Slovakia and Hungary secured deletions for political reasons, not legal ones, including a bid for Usmanov himself, backed by Turkey’s president, though Slovakia relented. Some 2,700 Russians remain sanctioned.

Szijjártó’s defence

The minister insists his public stance matches private words: for four years he has decried sanctions as a failure, “harming the EU more than Russia”. Hungary will never allow sanctions on those vital to its energy security, peace efforts, or lacking any rationale, and he will stick to that line.

Questions persist: how do concessions on the shadow fleet or Putin cronies serve Hungary, which buys only pipeline oil from Russia (none since 27 January via Druzhba)? Neither Lavrov, Szijjártó, nor Slovakia’s Robert Fico responded to VSquare.

UPDATE: Usmanov’s legal representative reacts

Following the publication of this article, Daily News Hungary received a formal response from Joachim Nikolaus Steinhöfel, the Hamburg-based legal representative of Alisher Usmanov and his sister, Gulbahor Ismailova. The statement disputes several claims and characterisations made in the original report and requests that their position be reflected.

According to the legal representative, any request addressed to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs concerning the potential removal of sanctions against Usmanov or his relatives constituted an official diplomatic matter. He argues that such actions fall within the responsibilities of a state to protect the rights of its citizens and their family members under international law, including the Vienna Convention.

The statement further notes that appeals regarding the delisting of Gulbahor Ismailova were supported by multiple state leaders, and that in March 2025, the Council of the European Union decided to remove her from the sanctions list through a joint agreement of all EU member states, which, according to the letter, indicates a lack of sufficient legal grounds for maintaining sanctions against her.

The response also rejects descriptions portraying Usmanov as closely linked to the Kremlin or as a beneficiary of President Vladimir Putin. It states that such allegations have been challenged in court and, in several cases, media outlets were unable to substantiate them with credible evidence. The letter references legal outcomes involving publications such as Forbes, Der Tagesspiegel, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and Kurier, as well as a retraction by economist Anders Åslund, who had previously described Usmanov as one of Putin’s “favorite oligarchs.”

In addition, the legal representative disputes the use of the term “oligarch” in connection with Usmanov, arguing that the label is inaccurate and harmful to his reputation. The statement maintains that the term should apply only to individuals who acquired wealth through close ties to the Russian state during the privatisation processes of the 1990s, which, according to the letter, does not apply to Usmanov’s business history. It further highlights that the Council of the European Union, in an updated rationale published in September 2023 (see #673 HERE), no longer uses this designation in relation to him.

If you missed our previous articles concerning the close Russia-Hungary ties:

• Russian disinformation network spreads fake assassination and coup claims about Orbán
• Russia might have been in EU discussions: Hungarian opposition leader accuses FM of ‘treason’