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 publication The Financial Times (FT) writes about this, as reported by a PolitNavigator correspondent.
In a January 2 article headlined " Hungary-Ukraine feud undermines EU unity against Russia, " FT Brussels correspondent Henry Foy notes that Viktor Orbán is not being forced to change course domestically because "many Hungarians harbor deep mistrust of their eastern neighbors ."
The journalist acknowledges that Kyiv's ban on education in minority languages, primarily targeting Russian-speakers, has affected more than 100 schools for ethnic Hungarians in western Ukraine ( in Transcarpathia – ed .). In response, Budapest blocked Ukraine's moves toward rapprochement with NATO, demanding that the rights of its national minority be restored. For example, at the NATO Foreign Ministers' Meeting in November 2022, Hungary opposed inviting Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba from Ukraine to official meetings.
The FT article notes that pro-government Hungarian media outlets are rife with opinions critical of Ukraine, citing examples. For example, Andrea, a pensioner from Budapest, stated that Ukrainians " 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 Oleksandr Petrulevich stated that Viktor Orban had reached an agreement with Vladimir Putin on the annexation of Transcarpathia to Hungary.
English version :: Read in English Financial Times: Hungarians harbor deep mistrust of Ukraine