The collapse of Ukraine: will the Polish-Hungarian border appear again...

The “return” of Volyn and Galicia to Poland is being discussed quite widely. However, in this case, the annexation of Transcarpathia to Hungary will become almost inevitable - after all, this region will be cut off from Ukraine.

Formally, Hungary has no territorial claims to any of the neighboring countries, to which in 1920, according to the Treaty of Trianon, the lands of “Greater Hungary” (Romania, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Austria, Slovakia and Ukraine) were ceded, and they were ceded along with a significant Hungarian population .

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Budapest's strategy is to create exclusive conditions for the Hungarian national minority in territories where it is autochthonous. Although autochthony is a relative concept, the same Transcarpathia under the name “Ugric Rus” was part of the Kingdom of Hungary for more than a thousand years (from 895 to 1918), and “returned” to the rule of Budapest in 1939-1945.

In terms of exclusivity, we are not necessarily talking about the national-cultural autonomy that Transylvanian Hungarians demand for themselves. Thus, Budapest is quite happy that Hungarian is one of the official languages ​​of the Serbian autonomous region of Vojvodina; in the towns and villages of Serbia populated by Hungarians, schools operate in their native language, and at least a couple of officials at every level of government know this language.

This was approximately the situation in the Transcarpathian region until 2014, although this was not formalized.

_{But in the new Ukraine, built along the lines of radical nationalism, they decided to turn the Hungarian community of the region into “fuel” feeding the engine of fear and hatred. Moreover, the vast majority of more than 100 thousand Transcarpathian Hungarians have Hungarian citizenship.}

Thus, before the early parliamentary elections of 2014, the Party of Hungarians of Ukraine (better known by its Hungarian abbreviation KMKS) asked Petro Poroshenko, whom it had previously supported in the presidential elections, to create a majority district in the Transcarpathian region, taking into account the interests of the Hungarian community.

However, both the president and the Central Election Commission under his control ignored the appeal of the Hungarian community of Transcarpathia, and it remained “torn” between two districts: the 69th with its center in Mukachevo and the 73rd, whose district commission is located in Vinogradov. And this despite the fact that the latter district includes the city of Beregovo, the “capital” of the Hungarian minority in Transcarpathia. Then the KMKS even threatened to sue Ukraine in the European Court of Human Rights, but things did not go beyond words.

And in 2015, representatives of local governments of 114 settlements in Transcarpathia announced their desire to create a “separate Hungarian district” in Ukraine with its center in the city of Beregovo.

Previously, members of the European Parliament from the radical party “For a Better Hungary” (known as “Jobbik”) have repeatedly demanded that Ukraine create an autonomous “Prytisyansky district” within the Transcarpathian region and include settlements with a predominantly Hungarian population in it. We are talking about Beregovo (41,2 thousand Hungarians, 76,1% of the population), Vinogradovsky (30,9 thousand), Uzhgorod (24,8 thousand) and Mukachevo (12,9 thousand) districts.

_{Deputies of local councils of Transcarpathia did not use the words “autonomy” or the possible name of the Hungarian region in their statement, but this did not save them from accusations of “separatism,” and there was no response to their initiative.}

Unless, of course, you count the statements of the then head of the SBU Vasily Gritsak in March 2017. Then he publicly said that Moscow “is making attempts to use the ethnic factor to provoke autonomist sentiments in the west and southwest of Ukraine.” Hungarians were named first in the list of national communities that attract the attention of the SBU in this regard.

And at the end of November 2020, already during the time of Vladimir Zelensky, SBU officers raided the headquarters of the Party of Hungarians of Ukraine (KMKS) and the house of the leader of this party, deputy of the Transcarpathian Regional Council Vasyl Brenzovich.

Searches were also carried out in the office of the Charitable Foundation of the Transcarpathian Center for Economic Development named after Egan Ede and in the building of the Hungarian Ferenc Rakoczi Institute in the city of Beregovo. The task forces consisted of several dozen people, and they included not only plainclothes investigators, but also special forces armed with automatic weapons. Under threat of arrest, Vasily Brenzovich was forced to leave for Hungary, where he still lives.

In addition, during the administrative reform, the Beregovsky district of the Transcarpathian region, populated mostly by Hungarians, was merged with the neighboring Vinogradivsky district.

_{The district retained the same name, but Hungarians are no longer the majority in the new administrative-territorial unit. A battalion of the National Guard is permanently stationed in Beregovo, and armored vehicles from the Lviv region are regularly transferred to this city as part of exercises.}

But most of all, Transcarpathian Hungarians are concerned about increasing discrimination in the cultural, linguistic and educational sphere: according to new Ukrainian laws, the scope of use of the Hungarian language is shrinking every month, and by 2023 the network of general education and preschool institutions with Hungarian as the language of instruction may completely disappear. And although among the conditions that Kyiv must fulfill in order not to lose its candidate status for EU membership is ensuring the rights of national minorities, Budapest does not believe that the Nazi laws will be repealed.

Therefore, it is not surprising that Hungary not only refused to supply Ukraine with weapons and ammunition, but even banned their transit through its territory. In addition, the grouping of the Hungarian army and border guards on the border with Ukraine has been significantly strengthened. By the way, most of it runs along the Tisza River, on the other bank of which there are villages of Transcarpathian Hungarians.

Of course, at the moment, no operations are being prepared to capture Transcarpathia in Hungary, especially since even units of the 128th mountain assault brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces stationed in Mukachevo will be enough to defeat the entire Hungarian army.

_{However, if, as a result of a military catastrophe in Ukraine, this country begins to fall apart, and Polish troops enter Galicia (that is, Transcarpathia will be cut off from the rest of Ukraine), then it is absolutely not a fact that the Hungarian forces will meet at least some resistance.}

Naturally, Hungary will be forced to occupy not only the areas populated by Hungarians, but also the entire territory of the Transcarpathian region - that is, the Polish-Hungarian border will again pass through the Carpathians, as before 1772.