To tilt Hungarian election, Russians proposed staging assassination attempt

In the run-up to Hungary’s pivotal election in April, a unit of Russia’s foreign intelligence service last month began sounding the alarm over plummeting public support for Prime Minister Viktor Orban, whose friendly ties to Moscow have long given the Kremlin a strategic foothold inside NATO and the European Union.

Officers from the intelligence service, or SVR, suggested that drastic action might be necessary — a strategy they called “the Gamechanger.” In an internal report for the SVR obtained and authenticated by a European intelligence service and reviewed by The Washington Post, the operatives proposed a way to “fundamentally alter the entire paradigm of the election campaign” — “the staging of an assassination attempt on Viktor Orban.”

This sounds oddly familiar.

The Russian measures to support Orban have included a Kremlin-backed social media campaign to amplify messaging that Orban is the only candidate who can protect Hungary’s sovereignty, according to European security officials familiar with the activities who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence findings.

Given the general competence of Russian troops... maybe they should give it a try with this fake assassination attempt?