The Hungarian journalist who has reported extensively on the Georgian Dream government’s excesses – and its ever-closer ties to the Orbán administration and Moscow – has been effectively expelled from the Caucasian country. Local authorities cite irregularities in his residence permit; back home, newspapers suggest he may have stumbled upon something awkward in the nexus between the Orbán system and the Georgian ruling party, which is cultivating increasingly warm relations with Russia.

Detained, then sent home

László Róbert Mézes, a Hungarian journalist who has lived in the country for years and regularly filed reports for Magyar Hang on the country’s political crisis, anti-government protests and Georgian Dream’s grip on power, was taken into custody in Tbilisi before being deported. The Georgian Interior Ministry said Mézes was in the country “without legal grounds” and had exceeded the permitted period of stay, invoking a provision of the aliens’ law that allows detention where there is a risk of absconding. His lawyer maintained that his client’s stay was lawful. Mézes ultimately left the country at his own expense, escorted to the airport by migration officials.

Mézes leaves Georgia – at his own expense:

The case is notable not least because Mézes is no ordinary Hungarian correspondent based in Georgia: he has been an outspoken critic of Georgian Dream. For Magyar Hang, reporting from Tbilisi, he wrote repeatedly on the so-called “foreign agents” law – a near word‑for‑word translation of the Russian model – and on the suffocation of civil society and independent media, the blocking of voting rights for the diaspora (some one million of Georgia’s five million citizens, whose remittances underpin the economy), the imprisonment of opposition politicians and critical journalists, and the near‑constant street protests. He also reported for Magyar Hang that Prime Ministers Orbán and Fico were obstructing EU moves towards targeted sanctions against Georgian political leaders.

On the 612th day of protests following the 2024 election, he published these photographs last Saturday:

Beaten in Tbilisi – and he told Orbán what he thought

In October 2024, during Viktor Orbán’s visit to Tbilisi, Mézes shouted at the Hungarian Prime Minister in Hungarian that he had come to legitimise “stolen elections”, and asked whether he was proud that Georgian Dream was copying Fidesz. Orbán, alone among EU leaders, congratulated the victors almost immediately after the poll, while the rest of the EU (save Slovakia), the European Parliament, the Georgian President and the opposition all rejected the result. Mézes’s situation deteriorated further in September 2025: while working as a journalist at an anti-government demonstration, he was attacked by Georgian Dream activists outside the party headquarters. He was beaten, required stitches to his face and sustained hand injuries; Georgian authorities later formally recognised him as a victim.

In this post, featuring a photograph with Péter Magyar, he informed his Georgian followers that Péter Magyar would be the next Prime Minister:

A pro‑Russian turn

Although the Caucasian country was at war with Russia in 2008 over South Ossetia and Abkhazia – territories occupied by Moscow and subsequently recognised as independent states – the Georgian Dream party has lately been cultivating conspicuously pragmatic relations with Putin’s Russia. The “foreign agents” law, passed in 2024 on the Russian model, targeted critical NGOs and media outlets; in November 2024 the government announced it would not commence EU accession talks until 2028. Tbilisi has not joined sanctions against Russia and continues to trade with Moscow, even though diplomatic relations have never been restored since the 2008 war.

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Good relations to be maintained, PM Péter Magyar pledges

Péter Magyar, Hungary’s prime minister-elect, said at a press conference shortly after the 12 April election that he would maintain good relations with Georgia. Asked by a reporter from the pro-government Georgian broadcaster Rustavi 2, Magyar said that the fact Viktor Orbán’s government had forged strong ties with a country in the Balkans – or anywhere else – did not mean Hungary would have a less close relationship with that country.

“But if Hungary has bad relations with a country, we will improve them, because it is in our shared interest to work together, to co-operate and to prosper together,” he added, according to civil.ge. Magyar also said he was open to visiting Tbilisi and looked forward to working with the Georgian government.

“But we are not going to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries. We will not try to influence elections in your country, North Macedonia or anywhere else. That’s not our style, and it is not the job of any European government. Everyone is elected to support and represent the electorate of their own country,” he said.

The media outlet noted that Irakli Kobakhidze, Georgia’s prime minister, had visited Hungary on 21 March to address CPAC Budapest and express his support for Mr Orbán. On 13 April, following the Tisza party’s victory in Hungary’s general election, the Georgian Government congratulated Mr Magyar and his party, while thanking Orbán for his “outstanding and steadfast support for Georgia’s national interests and the Georgian people over the years”.

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