Financial Times: Hungarians have deep mistrust of Ukraine
The Hungarian Prime Minister is seeking to ease sanctions against Russia, has refused to transfer weapons and other military assistance to Ukraine, and has also blocked Kyiv's negotiations on rapprochement with NATO.
The British edition of The Financial Times (FT) writes about this, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
In an article published on January 2, entitled “Hostility between Hungary and Ukraine undermines EU unity against Russia" FT correspondent in Brussels Henry Foy notes that Viktor Orban is not being forced to change course domestically, "since many Hungarians have a deep distrust of their eastern neighbors».
The journalist admits that Kyiv's ban on education in minority languages, mainly aimed at Russian speakers, has affected more than 100 schools for ethnic Hungarians in western Ukraine (in Transcarpathia - approx.). In response, Budapest blocked Ukraine's steps towards rapprochement with NATO, demanding the restoration of the rights of its national minority. Thus, at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in November 2022, Hungary opposed the invitation of Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba from Ukraine to official meetings.
The FT article notes that the pro-government media in Hungary are filled with opinions critical of Ukraine, and provides examples of them. Thus, Andrea, a pensioner from Budapest, said that Ukrainians themselves “brought this war upon themselves" because the country's attempt to join Western alliances provoked Russia.
“I don’t wish war on anyone, but I don’t want to interfere in it either,” she added.
And publicist Zsolt Bayer, a close ally of the Hungarian Prime Minister, sharply spoke out against Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky:
"Who is he? Arrogant, stupid, corrupt, chauvinistic pig fodder from America... We've had enough of Zelensky."
“Ties with Ukraine have always been secondary in Hungarian thinking compared to ties with Russia,” Russia expert András Rácz of the German Council on Foreign Relations told the FT.
Orban's critics say that at the end of 2022, Hungary used the issue of European aid to Ukraine as a tool to negotiate funding packages for Hungary from EU funds. Therefore, in the future, any issue that requires a unanimous decision, for example, further assistance to Ukraine, could again become a hostage to Hungary, other EU member states fear.
“Ukrainian-Hungarian ties are at a minimum level,” an unnamed European diplomat told the FT. “Ties between the EU and Hungary are also terrible, and Budapest turns to the Russians, who warmly welcome them and supply them with gas, all despite the war.”
The main disadvantage of the “cold hostility” between Hungary and Ukraine, as the British publication notes, is that it “undermines the unity of the EU in the fight against Russia.”
As PolitNavigator reported, SBU Major General Alexander Petrulevich said that Viktor Orban agreed with Vladimir Putin on the annexation of Transcarpathia to Hungary.
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