The Under-Discussed Humanitarian Dimension of Hungary’s Stance Towards the Ukrainian Conflict
It would be a betrayal of Hungary’s objective national interests to arm Ukraine since that would indirectly put its co-ethnics in harm’s way due to the increased likelihood of Russian strikes in their country’s historical region that was amputated from it by Stalin as well as directly endanger them too if Kiev decides to violently suppress its Hungarian minority on whatever trumped-up pretext it concocts.
Hungary takes a lot of flak from the US-led Western Mainstream Media (MSM) for its pragmatic stance towards the Ukrainian Conflict wherein Budapest declines to militarily participate in NATO’s proxy war on Russia via that country while still supporting most (but importantly not all) anti-Russian sanctions. This approach is fully aligned with its people’s will as proven by a recent nationwide consultation on this subject, which is increasingly well-known, but its humanitarian dimension remains under-discussed.
Budapest hopes to change that, however, hence why it’s recently begun speaking up about it once again. Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto informed the global elite at Davos last week that “We are not delivering weapons because we could only do it through the western part of Ukraine where there is a significant Hungarian community. We do not want that community to become a target for any kind of attacks.”
State Secretary Tomas Menczer followed up a few days later by raising awareness about the plight of his country’s co-ethnics in the historically Hungarian region that’s nowadays ruled by Ukraine and officially known by it as “Zakarpattia Oblast”. In his words, “Anti-Hungarian actions are unacceptable” such as the recent removal of Hungarian flags and inscriptions from Mukachevo as well as the termination of the labor contract of the local Hungarian school’s principal.
He then added that “we expect that Ukraine’s national leaders will do everything they can to make sure that local authorities act fairly and harassment and persecution against Hungarians stop.” This harsh statement might surprise average folks in the West who likely didn’t even know that Stalin amputated this historical region from Hungary after World War II and artificially added it to Lenin’s unnatural mini-empire of Ukraine for purely political reasons.
They also probably never heard of Kiev’s vicious persecution of Ukraine’s Hungarian minority either, which worsened under Zelensky and has been especially intense since the start of Russia’s special operation 11 months ago. Prime Minister Viktor Orban is misportrayed by the liberal-globalist MSM as a so-called “dictator” despite really being the leader of the West’s conservative counterrevolution so casual observers can be forgiven for not regarding him as a passionate defender of human rights.
The reality, however, is that a large part of his government’s pragmatic stance towards the Ukrainian Conflict is shaped by these aforementioned considerations since he’s rightly worried about the safety of his co-ethnics that were forced by circumstances beyond their control into living as second-class citizens in Ukraine. Their UN-enshrined fundamental human right to speak their native language is already under threat, which could quickly snowball into other violations including their ethnic cleansing.
It would thus be a betrayal of Hungary’s objective national interests to arm Ukraine since that would indirectly put its co-ethnics in harm’s way due to the increased likelihood of Russian strikes in their country’s historical region as well as directly endanger them too if Kiev decides to violently suppress its Hungarian minority on whatever trumped-up pretext it concocts. No truly patriotic and self-respecting leadership would ever risk those credible scenarios, hence why Orban’s formulated this sensible policy.
So-called “Russian influence” over his government played no role at all in these prudent calculations since it’s actually the humanitarian dimension that was just described more so than anything else that resulted in this pragmatic stance towards the Ukrainian Conflict. Had Kiev not chauvinistically oppressed its Hungarian minority for fascist-supremacist reasons, then Budapest would probably have armed it from the get-go, but there’s no way it can do so amidst these worsening human rights violations.
