Ukraine’s foreign ministry has summoned the Hungarian ambassador in Kyiv and accused Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of deliberately damaging Hungarian-Ukrainian relations after he recently compared Ukraine to Afghanistan and called it “no man’s land.”
Ambassador István Ijgyártó received a strong rebuke from Ukrainian officials over Orbán’s recent disparaging statements, Ukraine’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
Last week, at a briefing with journalists, the Hungarian prime minister told reporters that Russia’s goal was to turn Ukraine into an ungovernable shipwreck, claiming Ukraine “is now like Afghanistan. A no man’s land.”
The Hungarian diplomat was reportedly told that “the anti-Ukrainian rhetoric, which the Hungarian leadership has been pursuing for a long time, is completely unacceptable and is causing serious damage to Ukrainian-Hungarian relations.”
“The Hungarian side has been called upon to stop this negative trend in order to avoid irreparable consequences for relations between the two countries,” the ministry added.
Commenting on the matter, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said that “the consequence of war is that thousands of people are dying and whole parts of the country are becoming desolate. That is why Hungary wants peace and an immediate ceasefire instead of arms transfers.
“This has been Hungary’s clear position since the beginning of the war. Hungary does not want to get involved in the war, neither in words nor in deeds,” he added.
