Hungary has been a very restrained NATO partner since the outset of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The country has consistently refused to send weapons to Ukraine and is continually threatening to veto European Union aid to the country as well as sanctions against Russia, which Viktor Orbán’s government claims hurts Europe more than Russia. The reason for all of this has as much to do with domestic politics in Ukraine as with geopolitics, however.
Since the Maidan revolution in Ukraine in February 2014, Hungary has often accused the government in Kyiv of carrying out actions targeting ethnic minorities in the country, particularly the Hungarians of the Transcarpathia region in the country’s southwest. An area that was a part of the Kingdom of Hungary for centuries, the victorious Allies traded it like a slice of pie and attached it to the then newly-created nation of Czechoslovakia following the First World War. After being briefly retaken by Hungary in March 1939, Joseph Stalin ultimately incorporated the region into Ukraine following the Second World War, where it has remained ever since.
Ethnic Hungarians in Transcarpathia thus found themselves cut off from their motherland. It has been estimated that approximately 150,000 ethnic Hungarians still live in Transcarpathia today. In 2019 the Ukrainian government passed a law that mandated the exclusive use of Ukrainian by all citizens of the country, regardless of ethnicity, for a wide range of activities ranging from education to politics. Many Hungarians saw this as an attempt to turn the Hungarian minority in Ukraine, along with all other minorities in the country, into second-class citizens. Further, the Hungarian government has accused Kyiv of using threats and intimidation tactics to bully their ethnic brethren in Transcarpathia into submission.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó made it clear even before Russia’s invasion, in January 2022, that the unresolved conflict with Kyiv over minority rights would “very much limit the Hungarian government’s ability to provide any kind of support to Ukraine, even in this conflict.”
It is therefore no surprise that Hungary’s right-wing opposition party, Mi Hazánk (Our Homeland), has called upon Orbán’s government to demand regional autonomy for the Hungarians of Transcarpathia. It should be noted that in a referendum that was held in December 1991, the citizens of Transcarpathia voted in favor of autonomy for the region while remaining a part of Ukraine by a wide margin (78 percent), so this is not an unreasonable demand.
Roland Tseber, a Ukrainian from the Transcarpathian Regional Council, was quick to respond. In a video published on Facebook on Friday, Tseber claimed that anti-Ukrainian “radicals” are getting stronger in Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, and even Czechia. He then went on to address Mi Hazánk directly while standing in front of tanks outside Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry.
“I would like to express my sincere and passionate ‘greetings’ to Mi Hazánk and other European chauvinists who have decided to play the Transcarpathian card,” Tseber said in Ukrainian. “Look at the tanks behind me. Yes, this is how Ukraine welcomes invaders on its own land!”
Further on in the video, he declared, “Transcarpathia is Ukraine! It is not a subject for negotiation!”
The interesting thing about Tseber is that he has political relations with Péter Magyar, the current frontrunner among the anti-Orbán opposition in Hungary. Tseber posted a selfie of himself with Magyar on his social media last summer, where the two appeared to be quite friendly.
Referring to the success of Magyar’s party, Tisza, in last spring’s European parliamentary elections, Tseber said that “it becomes clear why the current Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has been so nervous lately, trying to rally his electorate with statements about the war in Ukraine and avoiding the issues of corruption scandals and the domestic economic situation in Hungary.”
After saying that Magyar fully supports the Ukrainian war effort against Russia, he added that “the EU needs a more constructive position from Hungary on these issues.”
With Hungary’s next national election now only a year away, and with Magyar doing well in the polls, it will be interesting to see what position he will take on Ukraine in his campaign in the coming months – and whether he will be willing to abandon the fight for the rights of the Hungarians of Transcarpathia in order to curry favor with Kyiv.
