{"id":1536712,"date":"2025-05-18T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-18T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1536712"},"modified":"2025-05-18T11:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-05-18T15:00:00","slug":"the-latest-hungarian-ukrainian-tensions-are-troubling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/the-latest-hungarian-ukrainian-tensions-are-troubling\/1536712\/","title":{"rendered":"The Latest Hungarian-Ukrainian Tensions Are Troubling"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Latest Hungarian-Ukrainian Tensions Are Troubling<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Andrew Korybko via substack,<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban\u00a0revealed<\/a>\u00a0after a meeting with the Defense Council that Ukraine is meddling in the\u00a0ongoing Hungarian referendum<\/a>\u00a0over whether to support Ukraine\u2019s EU membership plans<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He also accused the opposition of unprecedentedly colluding with them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This coincided with Hungary\u00a0reportedly downing<\/a>\u00a0a Ukrainian drone, which followed\u00a0tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions<\/a>\u00a0after Ukraine accused Hungary of spying on it and Hungary accused Ukraine of pushing hostile propaganda.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The larger context concerns Hungary\u2019s principled refusal to send arms to Ukraine or allow its territory to be used by others to that end due to its pro-peace policy. <\/strong>As can be evinced above, it\u2019s also against Ukraine joining the EU, the reason being that Ukraine\u00a0discriminates against<\/a>\u00a0the Hungarian minority in Zakarpattia\/Transcarpathia. Even though Orban has\u00a0repeatedly explained<\/a>\u00a0how the aforesaid policies align with Hungarian national interests, Zelensky and many in the West accuse him of being Putin\u2019s puppet.<\/p>\n

This was the tacit pretext upon which Ukraine let a gas deal with Russia lapse at the start of the year\u00a0to the detriment<\/a>\u00a0of downstream customers like Hungary and Slovakia, the second of which began\u00a0following in Budapest\u2019s geopolitical footsteps<\/a>\u00a0after Prime Minister Roberto Fico\u2019s return to power in late 2023. Ukraine\u2019s move was therefore clearly meant to punish them for their pro-peace policies, <\/strong>which Ukraine believes undermine European unity towards the conflict and could one day obstruct EU financial aid.<\/p>\n

The latest tensions are more troubling than any of the aforesaid since they concern security issues. <\/strong>Mutual mistrust was boiling for a while as detailed above but it\u2019s now taking on a new dimension. Given their deteriorating ties since 2022, it was to be expected that they\u2019d spy on each other, but few could have expected Ukraine\u2019s innuendo that Hungary might be preparing an invasion and Hungary\u2019s innuendo that Ukraine might try to orchestrate a\u00a0Color Revolution<\/a>. These claims deserve to be scrutinized.<\/p>\n

Ukraine\u2019s build upon smears that Hungary is a Russian proxy and might therefore be ordered to open a \u201csecond front\u201d sometime in the future on the pretext of protecting its co-ethnics. <\/strong>While they\u2019re indeed being discriminated against, the costs of a Hungarian military intervention in their support far outweigh the benefits. Hungary would ostracize itself from the West, open itself up to crippling sanctions and possibly even allied attack, and have to incorporate or forcibly expel Zakarpattia\u2019s Ukrainian population.<\/p>\n

Hungary\u2019s claims are more believable since Ukraine already behaves as a Western proxy. Former Defense Minister Alexei Reznikov\u00a0boasted<\/a>\u00a0in January 2023 that \u201cWe\u2019re carrying out NATO\u2019s mission today, without shedding their blood.\u201d The\u00a0Wall Street Journal<\/a>\u00a0then reported in March 2024 that Ukraine was fighting Russia in Sudan, while last summer, a GUR official\u00a0claimed credit<\/a>\u00a0for a\u00a0deadly Tuareg attack<\/a>\u00a0on Wagner in Mali. It thus wouldn\u2019t be surprising if Ukraine is helping the West undermine Russian-friendly Orban.<\/p>\n

With this insight in mind, Ukraine is much more of a credible threat to Hungary than the inverse.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In fact, Ukraine might exploit the latest tensions as the pretext for ramping up pressure on Hungary, which could in turn prompt more European countries to do the same.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Any legal action against the Hungarian opposition for their collusion with the Ukrainian special services might also lead to serious EU sanctions. Hungary must therefore brace itself for major meddling ahead of next year\u2019s parliamentary elections.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nSun, 05\/18\/2025 – 07:00<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bhttps:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/geopolitical\/latest-hungarian-ukrainian-tensions-are-troubling<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Latest Hungarian-Ukrainian Tensions Are Troubling Authored by Andrew Korybko via substack, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban\u00a0revealed\u00a0after a meeting with the Defense Council that Ukraine…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1536713,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1536712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1536712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1536712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1536712\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1536713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1536712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1536712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1536712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}