On the basis of these theoretical foundations, we can differentiate some threat perceptions along magnitude, politicization, and elite ramifications. We carried out surveys in the fall of 2019 and 2021 among Hungarian respondents and performed a computer-based poll on security and threat perceptions in five CEE countries—Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia—between September 20, 2023, and October 19, 2023. Each national sample of at least 1,000 individuals was representative of the age, sex, education level, and settlement patterns of the surveyed societies. We posed certain questions unaltered and in a similar manner, while we made only minor adjustments to others in response to evolving circumstances between 2019 and 2023. Essentially, this permits us to investigate time-series patterns for Hungarian respondents, specifically contrasting the circumstances prior to and following the 2022 escalation of the Russian–Ukrainian war. These observations, however, should only be considered as indicative because of the somewhat differing methodology and—above all—the distinct means of data collection. The survey in 2021 was conducted face-to-face, while the surveys in 2019 and 2023 were conducted online, computer-based. Our primary research question in this study is whether and how political communication and discursive superstructures altered public threat perceptions between 2019 and 2023 and between different national perception patterns in 2023.