Fake 'news' in Hungary about Ukrainians plotting assassination attempt on Orban

A news story was published on the Hungarian news outlet Demokrata.net, which says that local special services thwarted an attempt on the life of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

The assassination attempt on Orban was allegedly carried out by a Ukrainian from Ternopil who moved to Hungary after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Representatives of a Ukrainian special service allegedly directly planned the attempt. A video with an audio recording was cited as "evidence." This "news story" spread quickly via Russian Telegram channels.

The story is fake. It was published on a website with the domain address Demokrata.net, which turned out to be a fake cloned website of the Hungarian news outlet Magyar Demokrata.

The official website of this weekly political magazine has the domain address Demokrata.hu and there is no news story there about the attempt on Orban. The home page of the website features the main news story that the Supreme Court of the United States has stopped criminal proceedings against the country's former president, Donald Trump, rather than the fake news story about the assassination attempt.

There is no such news story in the social media accounts of this news outlet.

It should be noted that the source of the fake "intercepted audio recording" of a Ukrainian from Ternopil, who was allegedly preparing an assassination attempt under the guidance of the Ukrainian special services, was an anonymous YouTube channel that has already been deleted.

However, Russian and pro-Russian Telegram channels continue to distribute the video.

This fake was created amid an assassination attempt on U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump and reports of attempts on one of the world's richest people, Elon Musk.

Ukrinform earlier refuted a fake story about Ukraine's involvement in the assassination attempt on Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico.

Andriy Olenin