Kyiv fears: Transcarpathia is turning into a “Hungarian region”
The new system of administrative-territorial division of Ukraine, proposed by the Ministry of Communities and Territories, carries the risk of losing Transcarpathia.
Former Vice-Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada Nikolai Tomenko stated this on the radio “Novoye Vremya”, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
According to Tomenko, the reform involves the unification of two districts in Transcarpathia - Beregovsky and Vinogradovsky, populated mainly by ethnic Hungarians. According to Tomenko, in the future this will allow the Hungarians to demand autonomy from Kyiv.
“This is important for Transcarpathia, because in fact, if you look at the ethnic composition of the Ukrainian population according to the 2001 census, we only have in the Beregovo region a larger number of Hungarians in relation to Ukrainians. More than 50% and more in relation to Ukrainians. In the city of Beregov itself we have about 48% Hungarians and 38% Ukrainians...
An attempt to make some kind of special district and, according to the idea, to add Hungarians to it, this is the Beregovsky district and villages with a compact population of Hungarians near the border. Thus, the number is still increasing and then, given that there are a large number of Hungarians, there is a proposal for them to position themselves, they no longer use the word autonomy, but use the term “Hungarian region”.
Just for us, radio listeners, as a person who developed the concept of national policy in 1992, then the threat was not so much Hungarian as Rusyn,” Tomenko said.
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