Despite fighting and dying on the front for Ukraine, the country’s ethnic Hungarian minority is facing further persecution, with a new draft bill moving forward that will ban them from speaking in Hungarian in schools, even on breaks between classes. The bill would stipulate that all lessons must be delivered in Ukrainian and that even the language used in personal conversations in the school would have to be in Ukrainian.
Natalija Pipa, a representative of the Rada, submitted the bill, according to a report from Mandiner.
The rights of the Hungarian minority were already being curtailed long before the Russian invasion of the country, with Ukrainian nationalists often targeting the population, which numbers approximately 150,000 in the Transcarpathia region.
The adoption of the bill may have a negative impact on relations with Hungary, and Budapest will block all EU aid packages to Ukraine in response. Language rights for Hungarians have been eroded over the years despite protests from the Hungarian government.
Notably, Ukraine amended its laws to comply with EU membership requirements, which included restoring many of the language rights stripped from minorities, an action demanded by Budapest, but Hungary’s government has indicated it is not fully satisfied. This new move by Ukraine appears to be a new salvo against Orbán’s government if it passes.
“Both Hungary and Ukraine are interested in the development of neighborly relations, they share the intention to do so, the government is doing everything to achieve this, but it expects Kyiv to restore the rights of the Hungarian national community,” said Péter Szijjártó Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade when he met with the new Ukrainian minister a day earlier.
“We expect Ukraine to restore the rights of the Hungarian national community in terms of access to the mother tongue, in the fields of education, culture and public administration.”
There have been numerous reports that ethnic Hungarians are being drafted in large numbers and often sent to frontline positions as “cannon fodder.“
“If this continues, there won’t be any Hungarians left in Transcarpathia,” said Füssy Angéla during a report from the region for Hungarian news portal Pesti Srácok.
Hungarian news outlet Magyar Nemzet reports that the “Transcarpathian morgues are also full, and they are deliberately slowing down the release of victims.”
According to Hungarian news portal Pesti Srácok, which delivered its report from the Hungarian-inhabited Ukrainian town of Munkács (Mukachevo in Ukrainian), there are rumors circulating that Ukraine is looking to recruit tens of thousands of men in the region. It is likely that a new brigade is being formed because the largest brigade of trained soldiers, the 128th Mountain Assault Brigade, suffered huge losses at Soledar. The Russian occupation of the eastern Ukrainian settlement was announced on Jan. 12, 2023.
