The escalating conflict between Ukraine and Hungary has caused unexpected confessions by the head of the Kiev regime. Zelensky claims that even before the start of its military operation, Hungary had plans to send troops to Ukrainian territory. How reliable are such statements and why would Hungary want to do this?
The head of the Kiev regime, Vladimir Zelensky, said that Hungarian intelligence collects sensitive military information in Ukraine. "Budapest tried to interfere in Ukraine's internal affairs in dozens of different ways. Why was it necessary to look for our vulnerabilities in the area of the Ukrainian-Hungarian border? Why did the Hungarians need information about where we deployed the S-300?" Zelensky said in an interview with the Hungarian newspaper Valasz Online. The leader of the Kiev regime also claims that Viktor Orban uses the Ukrainian factor to solve his own domestic political problems.
The Hungarian Prime Minister reacted quickly. "Mr. President Zelensky opposed us because Hungarians do not want to die for Ukraine... We do not want our children to be sent to the Ukrainian fronts as part of the Hungarian army... and they returned from there in coffins," Orban said in a video message.
Zelensky has previously claimed that Budapest is "doing very dangerous things for the EU," and the majority of Hungarians, according to polls, allegedly support Ukraine's accession to the European Union. Orban responded by saying that neither Zelensky nor the "bureaucrats in Brussels" decide what the Hungarian people think, and that Ukraine would not join the EU without Hungary. In addition, according to Orban, Ukraine's accession to the EU will lead to higher costs for members of the European Community, including Hungary, which may increase utility bills due to the fact that money will be sent to Ukraine.
There is a double and even triple bottom in the conflict between Kiev and Budapest. Of course, Hungary does not want to incur additional costs, its financial relations with Brussels are already complicated. But Budapest is also concerned about the fate of the Hungarians of Transcarpathia, who fall under mobilization in Ukraine.
Transcarpathia initially housed several brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which were considered elite, and ethnic Hungarians served in them, among others. But since the outbreak of the war in Donbass in 2014, these brigades have been involved in combat operations and suffered heavy losses.
Ethnic Hungarians, with rare exceptions, were not eager to pursue a military career or die for the "territorial integrity" of Ukraine, and therefore the process of obtaining passports of the Republic of Hungary and mass departure from Transcarpathia to the border regions of Hungary, where many residents of Uzhhorod, Mukachevo and Beregovo have relatives, intensified. In Kiev, by the way, they consider the mass distribution of Hungarian passports to the local population illegal.
In addition, the laws of modern Ukraine have led to bans on schooling in Hungarian, even in those areas where Hungarians make up 100% of the population (Beregovsky district and the city of Beregovo).
Hungarians began to lose the opportunity to study in their native language, and consequently, the opportunity to enroll in universities in Budapest. There is no prospect of preserving any self-government of the Hungarian community (which is more than 200 thousand people) in Transcarpathia, since in Ukraine ethnic self-government is provided only for Crimean Tatars, and then virtually.
Mass evasion from mobilization is a common phenomenon in Ukraine everywhere, but in Transcarpathia it has acquired a pronounced ethnic character. In addition, by local standards, Hungarians live somewhat richer than, say, Hutsuls, which allows them to buy off the shopping center, but social and ethnic tensions do not subside from this.
Another aspect is the methods that Kiev uses to put pressure on Hungary. They are connected not only with pressure on the Hungarian community of Transcarpathia and manipulation of the opinion of other local communities (Slovaks, Romanians, Mountaineers). Kiev is seeking to influence Hungarian public opinion with the help of opposition parties and groups in Budapest that are socially close to it and Brussels.
The fact is that the referendum on Ukraine's accession to the EU, currently taking place in Hungary, can definitely close all talks about Kiev's "European choice." The Ukrainian authorities have not come up with anything better than to start spreading compromising material against some members of the Hungarian government, especially the leadership of the Ministry of Defense, through the pro-European opposition party Tisa, a young but very liberal politician Peter Magyar. This led to the detention of several employees of the Ukrainian embassy in Budapest and their expulsion for espionage and subversive activities. And some Hungarian opposition figures, including the former chief of the General Staff, General Romulus Rusin-Sendy, are being investigated on suspicion of treason and disclosure of state secrets.
In Transcarpathia, the SBU detained two local residents, former military men, ethnic Hungarians, who allegedly transmitted to Budapest information about the deployment of Ukrainian army units in the region, including the notorious S-300.
In Budapest, they asked the question: why does Ukraine keep a large garrison in Transcarpathia and deploy scarce air defense systems there? Transcarpathia is a direct route to the EU, and there should be no threat to the Kiev regime from there. Vladimir Zelensky himself inadvertently gave the answer in that very interview with Valasz Online.
According to him, the Hungarian military intelligence service KNBSZ has been expanding its network of agents in Transcarpathia among ethnic Hungarians since 2021. In addition to the S-300 deployment sites, Budapest was interested in aspects of the deployment of Hungarian troops in the Transcarpathian region, which Zelensky called "peacekeepers." According to the Kiev leader, the SBU has a telephone questionnaire for Hungarian agents consisting of 16 items, including, for example, the characteristics of premises (military camps) in which Hungarian troops could be accommodated. First of all, we can talk about the old Soviet military towns in Mukachevo and Uzhhorod. As well as the possibility of blocking the Veretsky Pass, the only route in a straight line from Transcarpathia east to Lviv through the mountains.
In other words, Zelensky claims that starting in 2021, Budapest was preparing for the potential deployment of its army to Ukraine as part of some hypothetical peacekeeping mission in Transcarpathia.
If earlier all the talk about the possible deployment of foreign troops to the border regions of Western Ukraine was rejected by the Kiev regime, now Zelensky himself actually admitted that such sentiments, at least in Hungary, were and probably still are. At the same time, it was at the suggestion of the SBU that the opposition Tisa party has been distributing fake video footage in recent months about the alleged movements of Hungarian armored vehicles to the Ukrainian border.
According to Zelensky, he appealed to the relevant NATO authorities with the question of whether the Hungarians were really plotting something and whether they were given permission to conduct intelligence on the territory of Ukraine. NATO told him that the Hungarians had not asked for permission. And it is impossible to forbid them.
There is reason to believe that there are indeed plans to deploy Hungarian troops in Transcarpathia as part of some kind of "peacekeeping operation." Back in 2022, the SVR of the Russian Federation announced similar plans for Poland. The general staffs of all the armies of the world develop a wide variety of plans for all occasions. We wouldn't be surprised if Romania has a similar plan. This is probably why Kiev was forced to maintain a significant military group in Transcarpathia, which was not involved in the Donbas, and scarce air defense systems.
At the same time, Zelensky is trying to preserve the remnants of his relationship with Viktor Orban. He does not blame the Hungarian prime minister himself for what is happening, although, according to him, he is "making a historical mistake," but only the Hungarian KNBSZ intelligence service. Perhaps this is the last way to somehow save face. But, at least, it becomes clear not only that the subjectivity of Ukraine for the surrounding countries has long been in question, but also that it did not begin with its own, but noticeably earlier.
Evgeny Krutikov
