Leading Hungarian propagandist cooperates with the Russian GRU

Leading Hungarian propagandist Georg Spettle, affiliated with the ruling party and known for anti-Ukrainian theses, has been in contact with the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate.

Telex.hu and the Direkt36 project reported this in their investigation.

In the second half of 2024, during the vetting of a candidate for a diplomatic training program at the Hungarian Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the National Security Service identified a threat: his close acquaintance had ties to Russian special services.

The man in question is Georg Spettl, a German-Hungarian propagandist and a public security expert who frequently appears on pro-government media platforms, including Magyar Nemzet, Pesti Srácok, Origo, Mandiner, Hír TV, TV2, and even state media. According to sources, it was Spettle who promoted this candidate using his government contacts.

Direkt36 investigators gained access to Spättle’s correspondence and found preparatory materials that largely coincide with the narratives spread by the propagandist. Their recipient was Colonel Oleg Smirnov, a military attaché at the Russian Embassy in Budapest and a GRU intelligence officer.

For example, on March 6, 2024, Smirnov sent two English-language propaganda materials to several recipients. The several-page documents on the letterhead of the Russian Embassy in Budapest, marked “unofficial,” were titled “The Role of Western Countries in the Ukrainian Conflict” and “The Situation Around Ukraine.”

When compared, the materials sent had a high degree of coincidence with Spettle’s statements that were later published. In particular, they stated that the West provoked the Russian-Ukrainian war, Ukraine is not autonomous, it is only used as a tool, President Zelenskyi is a puppet of the West, the West exploited Ukraine, and military support only prolongs the suffering of Ukrainians. Spettle used almost the same theses as in Smirnov’s letter.

With the support of his Russian counterpart, in August 2024, Spettl took part in the Moscow International Security Conference organized by the Russian Ministry of Defense. Although he actively shared his impressions of the trip, he tried to conceal the conference, probably due to a parallel security audit of his close acquaintance in Hungary.

After returning home, Spettle posted video and written materials about the Russian-Ukrainian war with extensive coverage of Russian theses even more intensively than before, and gave an interview to Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova.

Spettl visited Russia and the Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia several times. He not only reported on these trips in detail on various Hungarian propaganda media platforms but also accurately recorded the places he visited on his Facebook page. In August 2023, in addition to the Moscow conference, he visited Russian-occupied Mariupol, from where he wrote an article about “attacks by Nazi Ukrainians on civilians.”

When Spettle returned to Russia in August 2024, he traveled to Grozny, Chechnya, where he visited the Putin Russian University of Special Forces and was photographed with weapons and Russian soldiers at a shooting range.

Several former secret service officials and sources familiar with Spettlé unanimously told investigators that a citizen of an EU or NATO member state could not travel to such locations during the current war without the cooperation or approval of the GRU or the Federal Security Service (FSS).

Spettle’s ties to the ruling party Fidesz

According to his social media posts, Spettlé regularly met with leading Fidesz politicians, posting selfies together from various events and studios, including with Viktor Orbán, from whom (according to another post) he had previously received a birthday card.

In 2023, he also posted a photo with Defense Minister Krisztóf Szalai-Bobrovnitsky, who oversees the Military National Security Service (KNBSZ), whose tasks include obstructing Russian GRU agents’ activities.

The theses spread by the propagandist do not go unnoticed by Hungarian officials. For example, in March 2025, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said that he listened to Georg Spettlé’s podcasts.

“[I] listen to Georg, what is the situation in geopolitics, and it gives me some time to catch up. So I would like to congratulate him on the show, because I really, really like it,” Sijjarto said.

The foreign minister made the statement a few months after a national security audit conducted by his own ministry revealed Spettle’s ties to Russian intelligence.