Hungary’s tax authority has said it has arrested seven Ukrainians and two cash-transport vehicles on suspicion of money-laundering after Ukraine’s foreign minister accused Budapest of taking them hostage.
“The reasons are still unknown, as well as their current well-being,” Andrii Sybiha wrote on X. “We have already sent an official note demanding an immediate release of our citizens.”
According to Ukraine’s state savings bank, Oschadbank, the seven workers were in two vans carrying $80m (£60m) worth of cash and 9kg of gold in a regular transport between Austria and Ukraine. They were “unjustifiably detained” and GPS data showed their vehicles in Budapest, it said.
Hungary’s tax authority said on Friday that it was conducting criminal proceedings and added that one of the group was a former general of Ukraine’s intelligence service.
“This year alone, more than $900m, €420m and 146 kilograms of gold bars were transported to Ukraine through the territory of Hungary,” the national tax and customs administration said in a statement.
Relations between Ukraine and Hungary have deteriorated during Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and have descended into a war of words over a halt to Russian oil supplies through the Druzhba pipeline in Ukraine.
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán made no mention of the seven bank workers in his regular radio appearance on Friday, although he did say “transit shipments” important to Ukraine would be halted until a row over Russian oil supplies was sorted out.
Hungarian reports describe how black-clad officials from Hungary’s TEK counter-terrorism centre raided the Ukrainian-registered vehicles on Thursday and then their convoy headed to Budapest.
Responding to the incident, Ukraine’s foreign minister accused Hungary of “state terrorism and racketeering”.
“We are talking about Hungary taking hostages and stealing money,” said Sybiha on X.
Orbán, seen as Russia’s closest ally in the EU, has accused Ukraine of deliberately halting Russian oil through the pipeline. Kyiv says the pipeline was damaged in a Russian air strike in January and Orban has threatened to “force the Ukrainians to restart deliveries”.
The Hungarian leader, whose party is trailing in the polls ahead of next month’s pivotal elections, has also blocked a €90bn (£78bn) EU aid package seen as vital for Ukraine’s financing in a bid to force the resumption of oil supplies.
Orbán has repeatedly opposed EU funding for Ukraine, arguing it prolongs the war. He has focused much of his election campaign on an anti-Ukraine message.
Last month he ordered increased security for Hungary’s energy infrastructure, making unsubstantiated claims that Kyiv was preparing “further actions to disrupt” the energy system.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has criticised Orbán for blocking the aid package and said on Thursday that the Druzhba pipeline might only become operational again in another four to six weeks.
“To be honest, I would not restore it. This is my position. I expressed it to European leaders… because this is Russian oil,” he told a briefing. “Russians are killing Ukrainians and we have to give oil to Orbán, because he, the poor thing, cannot win the election without this oil.”
The Ukrainian leader also hinted that if Hungary’s prime minister continued to block EU funding for Ukraine, then Ukrainian armed forces would be given his address to “communicate with him in their own language”.
Orbán has said Budapest will use “political and financial tools” to force Ukraine to reopen the pipeline carrying Russian oil to Hungarian refineries.
Druzhba is the main route for delivering Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia and shipments of Russian oil to both countries have been cut off since 27 January.
In a separate development this week, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto travelled to Moscow and secured the release of two ethnic Hungarian prisoners of war.
Hungary says the men, who are from Ukraine’s Transcarpathia region, have dual Hungarian and Ukrainian citizenship and has accused Kyiv of conscripting them into the army.
Kyiv has described their transfer to Hungary as a “gross violation of international humanitarian law”.