Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry has summoned István Íjgyártó, Hungary’s ambassador to the country, after Viktor Orbán, the country’s PM, compared Ukraine to Afghanistan and called it “no man’s land”, Oleg Nikolenko, the official representative of Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry, wrote on Facebook.
“Another disparaging statement by Viktor Orbán about Ukraine. Such statements are categorically unacceptable. Budapest continues its course to deliberately destroy Hungarian-Ukrainian relations, significantly undermining the possibility of further dialogue between the two neighbouring countries,” he wrote.
The Hungarian ambassador will be summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine for a frank conversation, while other response measures might be implemented, Nikolenko noted.
During a meeting with journalists on 26 January, Orbán stated that “Putin cannot afford to lose, and will not lose because he’s up for re-election next year, and he cannot run as the president who lost a war,” and the West needs to understand this, as per The American Conservative whose reporter was present at the meeting.
In Orbán’s opinion, Russia’s goal is to make Ukraine an ungovernable wreck, so the West cannot claim it as a prize.
It’s Afghanistan now,“ he said. ”The land of nobody." (Meaning: No Man’s Land.)
Hungary is one of the few EU member countries that did not supply any weapons to Ukraine and backed the easing of sanctions for Russia. Orbán stated earlier that his country would veto any EU sanctions against Russia that touch upon nuclear energetics.
