Hungary government accuses journalist of spying for Ukraine

BUDAPEST, March 26 (Reuters) - Hungarian authorities said on Thursday they had launched an investigation into a journalist over accusations that he was spying for Ukraine amid an ​increasingly acrimonious election campaign - allegations dismissed by the reporter.

Nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban, ‌who has kept close ties with Russia during Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, is fighting to extend his 16 years in office in the face of an unprecedented challenge from ​a centre-right opposition party.

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On Thursday, Orban’s chief of staff told a briefing that ​journalist Szabolcs Panyi, who has been investigating the government’s ties to ⁠Moscow, was a spy working for Ukraine.

“More and more Ukrainian spies are ​uncovered in the country. The first of them is Szabolcs Panyi, who was ​discovered … to have spied against his home country in collusion with a foreign state,” Gergely Gulyas said.

Government spokesperson Zoltan Kovacs said a formal investigation has been launched into the journalist. ​Police did not immediately respond to emailed questions from Reuters.

Panyi dismissed the accusation.

“Accusing ​investigative journalists of espionage is entirely unprecedented in the 21st century from a European Union ‌member ⁠state,” Panyi wrote on his Facebook page.

“This is truly characteristic of Putin’s Russia, Belarus and similar regimes.”

Panyi is an investigative journalist who works for the Hungarian non-profit investigative outlet Direkt36 and Warsaw-based Vsquare.org.

As campaigning has accelerated in the build-up ​to the April 12 ​parliamentary election, relations ⁠between Budapest and Kyiv have reached new lows.

Orban has cast the election as a stark choice between “war or peace”, ​saying his centre-right opponent would drag Hungary into the war ​raging next ⁠door in Ukraine, an allegation the opposition has firmly denied.

He also repeated accusations that Kyiv and Brussels are interfering in Hungary’s election, a charge both reject.

On Monday, ⁠Orban ​ordered an investigation into what he said was the ​wiretapping of his foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, as his government responded to a media report about its ​links to Russia.

Reporting by Anita Komuves and Krisztina Than; Editing by Andrew Heavens

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