Author: Lakmusz, member of HDMO
Until the elections in April, we closely monitor social media and traditional media, with a particular focus on disinformation related to the elections and false or misleading content spread by the candidates. This is our fifth weekly digest of the digital trends shaping the campaign period.
The Ukrainians are the new enemy: the saga of a van full of money and gold
We have stepped into the final month of the election campaign, and it seems the ruling party has nothing better to do than blame Ukrainians for everything, incite hatred against them, and portray Volodymyr Zelenskyy as Hungary’s new greatest enemy, taking the place of George Soros. Just look at the billboards saying:
“Let’s not let Zelenskyy have the last laugh!”
The biggest news of the week was the “Ukrainian gold convoy”: the Hungarian National Tax Authority caught seven Ukrainian citizens on suspicion of money laundering and confiscated the money and the 9 kilograms of gold they were transporting from Austria to Ukraine. The Ukrainians have since been released and expelled from the country, but the seized money and gold remained in Hungary. Both Austrian and Ukrainian authorities and banks confirmed that nothing unusual had happened; such money transfers had taken place regularly before, and this has been standard procedure since the full-scale invasion.
However, the Hungarian government continues to insist that money laundering involving Ukrainians is happening in Hungary ahead of the elections, and that this must have something to do with Péter Magyar and his party. The news about the “gold convoy” spread quickly in pro-government media, accompanied by illustrations of the alleged arrest and a van filled with cash and gold bars. It soon turned out that these images were all AI-generated. The news with the illustrations were widely shared on Facebook and reached a remarkably large audience. How? Through reactions from many foreign users with Scandinavian or Asian-sounding names, almost certainly fake profiles.
In the meantime, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó shared a video on Facebook claiming that a Hungarian tennis player had received an anonymous message threatening to kidnap his family before he was set to play a match against a Ukrainian player. Szijjártó implied that the threat had come from Ukraine. However, this turned out to be false: many tennis players received threatening messages very similar to that sent to the Hungarian player; this is likely part of a larger operation related to sports betting fraud.
Are the Russians already in the room?
Multiple European national security sources said that the Kremlin has tasked a team of political technologists with meddling in Hungary’s April 2026 elections, wrote Szabolcs Panyi in the VSquare newsletter. It appears that this Russian team is the same one that was active in several Western countries and Moldova ahead of their 2025 elections. According to the Financial Times, the team comes from the Social Design Agency (SDA), a Russian communications and consulting firm with close ties to the Kremlin. We have previously looked at the SDA’s work, as well as what happened right before the Moldovan elections.
We have identified several disinformation operations which are likely to emerge in Hungary in the coming weeks. As in Moldova, we can expect the following here as well:
- the spread of fake news using the names and logos of reliable news outlets,
- the distribution of fake opinion polls,
- the flooding of voters with threatening messages regarding the risk of war breaking out,
- the sowing of uncertainty among Hungarian voters living abroad through fake news about the candidates or the voting process itself.
Political Capital has compiled a list of some Russian influence operations in Hungary over the past year, such as the rumour that Putin wants to return Transcarpathia to Hungary, or the recent disinformation operations spreading fake articles and Facebook ads to discredit Péter Magyar or other opposition figures, like Gábor Iványi.
The district where Facebook pages are popping out like mushrooms
You remember that electoral district which has been targeted by AI videos and political ads, right? As we wrote in our latest weekly digest: „Several Facebook pages have run ads of AI videos in the same electoral district. Each of them supports different candidates, but what they have in common is that they all circumvent Meta’s ban.” Péter Magyar suggested that what we’re seeing in this district is also part of the Russian disinformation operation.
It really does seem like a never-ending story: another suspicious Facebook page has appeared, and guess what? It’s running political ads on Facebook promoting AI videos. The pattern is obvious:
these pages are created to support opposition candidates of the Democratic Coalition and the Two-Tailed Dog Party, and to discredit the Tisza Party’s candidate (the parties told Lakmusz that they have nothing to do with the pages). Meanwhile, several pages are promoting the Fidesz candidate.
Lakmusz’s editor-in-chief Szilárd Teczár spoke to POLITICO Europe about the AI campaign videos, political ads, and the overarching narrative of the Hungarian government, namely, that if the government loses the election, Brussels and Magyar’s Tisza party would “prioritize the needs of Ukraine, take money away from Hungarians,” and drag the country into the war with Russia.
That’s all for today, see you next Friday. Stay tuned, share this article and tell us what you think!
Cover Photo: Annamari Dezső/Lakmusz