Hungary Pushes Back at Ukraine Invasion Claims, Won’t Sanction Russian Oil

A rift between Budapest and Kyiv over a claim Hungary had advance knowledge of Russia’s plans to invade Ukraine will likely be exacerbated by Hungary’s refusal to back EU sanctions on Russian energy. The diplomatic dust-up began earlier this week when the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, Oleksiy Danilov, made the provocative claim that Vladimir Putin shared his plans to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine with Hungarian authorities. Mr. Danilov noted that the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orban, had traveled to Moscow on February 1. Some three weeks later, Russia invaded Ukraine. There is more to Ukraine’s ire than the charge Mr. Danilov leveled in a televised interview on Monday, during which he said Hungary “was warned in advance by Putin that there would be an attack on our country.” He also said that the Kremlin believed Hungary could “for some reason take part of its territory. The country that behaved this way — let’s see what the consequences will be after this war for this country.” While that was a cryptic reference to many observers, Politico reported he was speaking about Ukraine’s Transcarpathian region, which was not only part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire prior to World War I but also part of Hungary on the eve of World War II.The Hungarian embassy in Kyiv urged Mr. Danilov to withdraw his statements, writing in a Facebook post that they “contain accusations that are false and unfounded and incite hatred in the war-torn Ukrainian public against the Hungarian people and Hungary.” The post continued: “We strongly reject and condemn the false slanders of Hungary and the intentions behind them.” It did not specify what the supposed intentions were. The Hungarian embassy also said “this is not the first time that some members of the Ukrainian leadership have expressed similar views against Hungary, a NATO and EU member state that expresses its solidarity and support for Ukraine in many ways.” That assertion veers toward the spurious, because on Tuesday Hungary along with Slovakia said it would not support sanctions against Russian energy that the European Union has in the works, citing a reliance on the supplies and lack of immediate alternatives. The European Commission’s draft proposals for sanctions that will likely include a phased-in embargo on Russian oil will be discussed today, but it could take weeks for such measures to effectively kick in. Speaking in Kazakhstan on Tuesday, the Hungarian foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, said, “The point is simple, that Hungary’s energy supply cannot be endangered because no one can expect us to allow the price of the war to be paid by Hungarians.” Currently, “it is physically impossible for Hungary and its economy to function without Russian oil,” he added. Hungary has developed a reputation as a maverick among the 27-member countries of the European Union and its populist prime minister is openly critical of EU bureaucracy and is widely considered to be Vladimir Putin’s closest ally in the bloc. Mr. Orban, who last month won his fourth consecutive term as prime minister, has previously noted that 85 percent of Hungary’s gas and more than 60 percent of its oil comes from Russia.

Hungary Pushes Back at Ukraine Invasion Claims, Won’t Sanction Russian Oil

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