“Everyone raises their heads at the child with the strange name. Anyway, I also read the comments criticizing my name, but I say that as long as they only attack my name, I have no reason to worry,” he said in June 2021 Ruthenian-Szendi Romulus to the Hungarian Nation when he was appointed commander of the Hungarian Defense Forces. After he spoke at the Tisza Party congress on February 15, 2025, he was no longer attacked by the ruling party media because of his name. Among the politicians of the Tisza Party, who won two-thirds of the vote in the April 12 election, only Péter Magyar received more personal attacks in the propaganda, where the attacks reached from his liposuction to his mirror-equipped bedroom and pool table to his unkempt style. It became such a popular target for the government party public that it was pushed back in the last weeks of the election campaign, Tisza instead pushed other leaders to the fore.
Born in Miskolc in 1973, but raised in Edelény, Ruszin-Szendi graduated from the Kossuth Lajos Military College as an artillery officer and surveying engineer in 1995. At the Zrínyi Miklós University of National Defense, he obtained a master’s degree in military leadership in 2003, a doctorate in military science in 2010, and a master’s degree in strategic sciences in the United States in 2014.
During his military career, he served in various officer positions in Tapolca, Székesfehérvár, Pécs, Tata, Szolnok, in the latter city in the special operations battalion, then in the light mixed battalion. He already participated in the NATO missions in Iraq and Afghanistan as a commander, then he worked at the Operations Group Headquarters of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, and then he was the commander of the rifle brigade in Debrecen.
From the spring of 2019, he became the head of the secretariat of the Minister of National Defense and then the deputy state secretary for human policy. At the time, Viktor Orbán allegedly expected him to recruit tens of thousands of young people for the army, to train and prepare them to become soldiers. The Ministry of Defense then communicated that they would concentrate on personnel, soldiers, personal equipment, and the creation of modern and comfortable infrastructure.
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Lt. Gen. Romulusz Ruszin-Szendi, the commander of the Hungarian Armed Forces, arrive at the autumn military exercise of the Hungarian Armed Forces after the government meeting on force development held at the Central Training and Shooting Ground in Hajmáskér on September 30, 2021 – Photo: Benko Vivien Cher / Prime Minister’s Press Office / MTI
Ruszin-Szendi immediately began his command with a controversial measure. He suspended indecency proceedings against a high-ranking military officer, even though the officer was accused, among other things, of regularly forcing several of his subordinates to commit sexual acts.
The appearance of Ruszin-Szendi at the Tisza Party congress was not well received in opposition circles either. Member of Parliament Ákos Hadházy indicated it immediatelythat based on what is known about Ruszin-Szendi in the public eye, he should be dismissed immediately in a normal country, and should not even come close to politics. He criticized the fact that he worked as a state secretary in the government from 2019, during his command there were, according to Hadházy, non-transparent arms acquisitions, a political purge was taking place in the army, traveled in luxurious conditions and even after his dismissal, he made statements reinforcing the Russian war narrative.
As commander of the National Guard, Ruszin-Szendi, in accordance with the government’s policy, believed that “this is not our war, we must stay out of it”. After his release, although his name came up for several diplomatic posts, a diplomatic career did not work out. After that, he appeared more and more often as a military expert in the right-wing public. Even after his removal from the commanding post, he stuck to the Fidesz narrative that although Russia is the aggressor, the war in Ukraine was provoked by the West. “Like it, don’t like it, Russia didn’t feel safe,” he said.
Ruszin also supported the government’s arms purchases and indeed assisted in the process officially described as rejuvenation, in which a number of officers were retired from the army, and which Hadházy referred to as a purge. In April 2023, however, he was unexpectedly dismissed from his post, the reason for which was not specified. At that time, the ministry only wrote that it “made serious merits in speeding up and modernizing military training, and took significant steps to increase the combat capability of the Hungarian Armed Forces.” It is on the day of his release from the position of commander Transparently an article was published about military planes bound for Ukraine being videotaped at Győr airport. According to many, Ruszin-Szendi became the victim of the “rejuvenation” that he himself assisted until then.
After he appeared on the side of the Tisza, in 2025 he was attacked by the propaganda media. In the pro-government press, Index launched the first attack against him, accusing him of being the general he had a service villa built for himself for hundreds of millions. Ruszin-Szendi he immediately denied. A few months later, the Government Audit Office (Kehi) issued a report on the villa, claimingthat an additional HUF 652.5 million worth of investments were made on the property in Dunakes, purchased for HUF 235 million, for Ruszin-Szendi’s needs.
They wrote about a premium high bed, a jacuzzi, a unique indoor sauna, a four million HUF pool table, two million HUF double beds and a massage chair. The Tisza Party avoided this by saying that Ruszin-Szendi did not know about the costs of the renovation. The Kehi in his report, he really does not mention Ruszin-Szendi’s legal responsibility. The Kehi document states that “according to the available data, the former chief of staff and his wife made the requests for the furnishings in the property”, no stronger statement is made about Ruszin-Szendi’s responsibility.
The purchase and renovation of the property was carried out by HM EI Zrt., the final decision on the renovation had to be made either by the Secretary of State for Administration of the Prime Minister’s Government Office, or the Secretary of State for Administration of the Ministry of Defense, or the board of HM EI Zrt.
According to another investigation by Kehi the chief of staff graduated illegally, with public money liposuction. The accusation originally it was formulated by Bors. Ruszin-Szendi originally he denied it all, character assassination called it, he finally said that it belongs only to you and your doctorwhat kind of intervention was performed on it.
Meanwhile, in the summer of 2022, while still commander of the National Guard, he secretly visited Ukraine, which the then commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army, Valery Zaluzhny, clearly evaluated as a sign of Hungary’s support for Ukraine. This visit of his then became a recurring element of the Fidesz campaign, it was well suited to the narrative of war-mongering that the future minister of national defense of the Tisza Party is a friend of Ukraine. This is to be confirmed by Kristóf Szalay-Bobrovniczky He ordered an investigation in March 2025 due to the fact that, according to his claim, Ruszin-Szendi did not represent the Hungarian government’s position on the issue of the Russian-Ukrainian war even as Chief of Staff, i.e. years earlier, at the official NATO meetings. According to the indictment, at one of the meetings, he greeted the Ukrainian with a battle cry, “Slavic Ukraine”.
Péter Magyar and Romulus Ruszin-Szendi at the press conference held at the border fence near the Tisza Island on March 3, 2025 – Photo: János Bődey / Telex
A month later, Magyar Nemzet was already reporting that he was Ruszin-Szendi would send Hungarian soldiers to Ukrainewhich was supported by a statement made on the Ultrahang YouTube channel, which still belongs to the propaganda press. In any case, Ruszin-Szendi talked about the fact that it would only be legitimate to deploy Hungarian soldiers in Ukraine if it were a member of NATO or the EU. “Government propaganda lies again and creates scaremongering. I never claimed that anyone would send Hungarian soldiers to Ukraine” – Ruszin-Szendi wrote in response on his social media page.
Then another one into a confusing espionage case they also tried to mix it up. “How interesting, by now everyone has found out why I was illegally fired. Suddenly I became a spy. After 2 years, they found out that I was pro-Ukraine, I falsified a report… Hello! Then why wasn’t there a case against me after I was fired? Why did the minister praise me in government propaganda? Why was I allowed to teach students at the National Defense University and at the MCC led by Balázs Orbán? Interesting, isn’t it? At the bottom, this accusation…maybe the reason things are going wrong on the secret service line is because the political purge took place there as well”, the future Minister of National Defense responded to these.
In the end, Ruszin-Szendi was pulled back by the Tisza Party for the election campaign. This also required the fact that Ruszin was present at one of the party’s events He was wearing what appeared to be a weapon under his clothes. A police procedure was also initiated in the case, the authorities his gun was confiscatedand Fidesz still he also initiated the tightening of firearms ownership in the Parliament. Finally due to a violation a case was opened against him, which was closed by the police because, as it turned out, he was not actually wearing a weapon under his clothes. The general thus finally he also got his gun back.
THE another violation case It started because of what happened at the Tisza Party’s event in Kotcs, where he met Mandiner’s colleague, Márk Móna tensed. In the most unexpected turn of this case, finally proceedings were also initiated against the police officerwho, after hearing him, did not lead Ruszin-Szendi out the main gate, where the cameras of the propaganda press would have been waiting for him, but let him leave through the business entrance.
