Russia Expels Hungarian Diplomats in Retaliation as Budapest's Break With the Orban Era Deepens

Russia on Thursday ordered a group of Hungarian diplomats to leave the country, hitting back at Budapest for expelling 10 Russian envoys last month. The Russian Foreign Ministry said staff from Hungary's embassy in Moscow and its consulates general in St Petersburg and Kazan had been declared personae non gratae and must depart within two weeks. It did not say how many people were affected.

The ministry also summoned Hungary's chargé d'affaires in Moscow, Gábor Gergics, to deliver what it described as a decisive protest against the earlier Hungarian move, which Moscow called groundless and openly unfriendly.

How the dispute started

On September 8, Hungarian Foreign Minister Anita Orbán announced that 10 Russian diplomats were being expelled for activities incompatible with their diplomatic status. That phrase is standard diplomatic shorthand for suspected intelligence work. Moscow promised at the time that it would respond, and Thursday's order is that response, a classic tit-for-tat even if the exact headcount has not been disclosed.

Hungary's foreign ministry said it had taken note of the Russian decision and stressed that it has no interest in escalating diplomatic tension. That measured tone suggests Budapest wants to signal firmness without letting the row spiral into a broader rupture.

Why this matters more than a routine spat

Expulsions between Russia and European capitals have become common since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. What makes this episode notable is the country on the other side. For 16 years under former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Hungary was the European Union member most willing to keep warm relations with the Kremlin. Orbán continued buying Russian oil and gas despite EU sanctions, repeatedly slowed or diluted EU decisions on support for Ukraine, and met Vladimir Putin even as most Western leaders kept their distance.

That changed in April, when Orbán lost power. His successor, Péter Magyar, took office in May at the head of a centre-right government that has repeatedly described the EU and NATO as Hungary's core alliances. Magyar has made rebuilding trust with Brussels and with Ukraine a stated priority, and the September expulsion of Russian diplomats was widely read as the clearest signal yet that Budapest's pro-Moscow chapter was closing.

Thursday's retaliation confirms that Moscow has read it the same way. A government that Russia once counted on to soften EU policy is now being treated like any other European capital that has crossed the Kremlin.

What to watch next

Three things will show how far the cooling goes. The first is energy: Hungary remains heavily dependent on Russian gas and oil delivered by pipeline, and any move by Budapest to diversify faster, or by Moscow to use supplies as leverage, would raise the stakes well beyond embassy staffing. The second is the Paks II nuclear project, which Russia's Rosatom is building in Hungary and which ties the two countries together for decades. The third is Hungary's voting behaviour in Brussels, where unanimity is needed for sanctions packages and some Ukraine-related decisions. A Hungary that no longer blocks or delays those votes would remove one of Russia's most useful pressure points inside the EU.

For now, both sides appear to be keeping the dispute contained to diplomatic rosters. But for a relationship that was until recently one of the Kremlin's warmest in Europe, a reciprocal round of expulsions is a meaningful marker of how quickly the politics in Budapest have shifted.

This is an original summary based on public reporting. See our editorial policy for how we source, write, and correct our stories.