Hungary has expanded its “terror list” following the “Volcano Group” to include the “Earthquake Faction”, which alleged to have attacked a drone company in the Czech Republic. Three suspects have been arrested there and face up to 20 years in prison.

By government decree, Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on Monday added the “Earthquake Faction” to a national terror list – effective from Tuesday. A group using this name had claimed responsibility for the arson attack on 20 March on a warehouse and an office building belonging to the arms company LPP Holding in Pardubice, Czech Republic.

According to its website, the company produces, among other things, engines and sensor systems for drones as well as rifle scopes. At the end of 2023, the company announced that, together with Elbit Systems – one of the three largest Israeli arms manufacturers – it would establish a drone production facility in the Czech Republic.

As early as January 2026, Budapest had listed the “Volcano Group” as “terrorist” – under this already repeatedly used name, a group had claimed responsibility in early January for an arson attack on power cables in Berlin-Lichterfelde. As a result, up to 100,000 people were reportedly left in the dark for days in some cases.

The decree published in the Hungarian official gazette justifies the inclusion of the “Earthquake Faction” with an increased terrorist threat across Europe as a result of the “Middle Eastern conflict”. In this context, “new radical international groups” had emerged. The decree is intended to protect “the Hungarian people, the country’s energy supply and the security of industrial facilities”.

This means that Hungary’s “terror list” now contains four entries following “Antifa” and the complex referred to as the “Hammer gang”, “Antifa East”. The respective decrees allow authorities, among other things, to freeze the assets of suspects, prohibit financial transactions and impose entry and residence bans on listed organisations and their members.

None of the groups appears on the European Union’s terror list – however, Orbán could apply for such a designation. Support comes from the United States: following the fatal attack on the ultra-right US activist Charlie Kirk, US President Donald Trump classified “Antifa” as a “terrorist organisation”. “It uses illegal means to organise and carry out a nationwide campaign of violence and terrorism,” the justification states.

In November, “Antifa East” was then added to the US list, among other reasons because this organisation, allegedly founded in Germany, was said to have carried out attacks in Budapest in February 2023 on the fringes of the far-right “Day of Honour”.

Regarding the attack by the “Earthquake Faction” last Friday, the Czech Interior Minister Lubomír Metnar of the right-wing populist party Ano also described it on the day of the attack as a “terrorist attack”.

In the meantime, three individuals from the Czech Republic and the United States have been arrested. Arrest warrants have already been issued against two of them in the Czech Republic, while another is to be extradited from Slovakia. They face up to 20 years in prison and deny the allegations.

According to reports, at least two of them had previously taken part in pro-Palestinian, feminist and LGBT protests.

Despite the “Earthquake Faction” claiming responsibility, another theory is circulating in right-wing conservative networks and now also among senior government members in Prague. According to this theory, Russian intelligence services may have recruited agents in “anti-Israeli” circles in order to disrupt weapons deliveries to Ukraine.

There is no evidence for this – but there is an indication that the Ukrainian defence supplier Archer, under the umbrella of LPP Holding, relocated its production to Pardubice in 2022 and produces thermal imaging devices for anti-tank warfare there. In the attack last Friday, almost the entire production for the Ukrainian army was reportedly destroyed, leading to delivery delays of at least one month.

The cooperation with the Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems announced by LPP Holding is also said never to have been implemented, according to reports including Reuters. The Czech company also emphasises that no equipment was produced for Israel and that no other cooperation exists.

Published in German in „nd“.

Image: Following the attack on the drone factory in Pardubice, the theory is circulating in the Eastern European “Visegrád states” that Russian intelligence services are behind it. Viktor Orbán has taken a different position (Earthquake Faction).