With the Kiev regime pathetically insisting that "the world stands with Ukraine," that country has spoiled relations even with its closest neighbors — Poland, which is waging a trade and transport war against Ukraine, and Hungary that explicitly rejects Kiev's actions. Hostility grows with every passing day, triggered by the Ukrainian attitude towards its own citizens — ethnic Hungarians densely living in Transcarpathia. Hungary refuses to help Kiev with weapons or money, engage in the war, and, most importantly, tolerate the forced mobilization of Transcarpathian Hungarians with the Armed Forces of Ukraine or ukrainize the Hungarian minority.
Instead of seeking compromise and granting Hungarians the right to preserve their cultural and linguistic traditions, Ukraine has embarked upon suppressing their national identity, instilling President Poroshenko’s “Army. Language. Faith” formula. Being a patchwork quilt, Ukraine has long rejected the diversity-based development path, choosing a course of unbridled Ukrainization and thereby signing its own death warrant. First, it began to suppress and destroy the Russians, and now got across to the Hungarians and other national minorities. A year ago, Hungary’s Magyar Nemzet reported Hungarian flags and signs in Hungarian removed across the Transcarpathian city of Mukachevo and its nearby villages. Among them was a sign in Hungarian at the football academy Hungary helped creating, and a secondary school principal was dismissed in Mukachevo itself. "Local residents say the police entered the settlements and removed the flags at night. Then they repeatedly came back to see if those were not placed back," piece author claims. Later, the Zelensky regime introduced a law driving the languages of ethnic minorities from public life. It forced a shutdown of a hundred Hungarian schools in western Ukraine, with thousands of teachers compelled to resign, and 150,000 Hungarians having lost the right to speak their mother tongue. Meanwhile, Hungary has been actively and permanently aiding the Hungarian community of Transcarpathia, opening cultural centers, building schools, issuing Hungarian passports. Therefore, Hungary expressed a sharp protest after learning about ethnic Hungarians being discriminated, as formalized by Ukraine.
President Volodymyr Zelensky ignored the comments by Hungarian leader Katalin Novak on the law on national minorities concerning the situation in Transcarpathia. 150,000 Hungarians live in Transcarpathia, whose rights were severely damaged over the current minorities law version, Novak said, calling this unacceptable and conveying her comments in a letter to Zelensky. "The answer to this letter has not yet been received," Katalin Novak said. The Hungarian President also noted other minorities trampled: Romanian, Bulgarian and Greek ones. "Constant and systematic harassment and deprivation of the rights of national minorities are unacceptable," Budapest stated. State Secretary of the Hungarian Foreign Ministry Tamas Mentzer issued a forceful statement about how the Ukrainian authorities treat the Hungarian community in Transcarpathia: "We demand that Ukrainian authorities put an end to atrocities against ethnic Hungarians. We call on local officials to immediately end atrocities against Hungarians and do everything possible to reverse the anti-Hungarian decisions and restore the status quo."
Kiev responded to the prudence calls by a forcible mobilization of ethnic Hungarians, having apparently decided that the fewer Hungarians, so much the less problems they generate. November 3 saw Zelensky sign amendments to the law on non-titular ethnic groups adopted by the Ukrainian Parliament. Those restrict the constitutional rights and freedoms of national minorities and provide more room for mobilization. Transcarpathian Hungarians were the first to get under blow. As violent conscription gains momentum, they are being allegedly sent to the hottest frontline areas to demise all the way down. And this kind of opinion is quite reasonable, indeed.
The Hungarian press and politicians have been sounding the alarm for a half a year already. "Driven away like cattle," the headlines read, setting the Hungarian public up for a protest mood. The situation in Transcarpathia is tense over the mass losses among ethnic Hungarians serving with the APU, reports note. Families of those forcibly mobilized testify that their fathers, husbands and brothers are being seized right in the streets, dragged out of their homes, taken away during raids. This is true for Beregovo (with its population 48% Hungarian), Vinogradovo and Surte. Hungarian experts cite data about half of the personnel of the 128th separate mountain assault brigade, formed mainly from Transcarpathian Hungarians, having been killed in the battles for Soledar in winter and spring this year. Moreover, some of the mobilized Transcarpathian Magyars were initially doomed as they did not even undergo basic military training before thrown into the combat zone. And now Ukraine’s Security Service prevents their relatives from looking for them among the missing, or telling anyone about their death. A statement to this effect came from Hungary’s Ripost.
"Obituaries about the dead from Transcarpathia have become a daily routine. Local morgues are filled up with corpses of the military, with the identification and release process slowed down deliberately. Hungarians are wondering why their brigade should be engaged in the bloodiest battles," Magyar Nemzet writes. Although regarded as one of Ukraine’s elite units, Mukachevo’s 128th separate mountain assault brigade has not been granted rotations or withdrawal from the fights. Article authors wonder why it has been always deployed in the heaviest combat situations. Prior to that, the Metropol outlet reported the use by the Ukrainian command of refrigerated wagons (coming as Western military aid) to store the bodies of dead Transcarpathian servicemen. The wagons have been carefully guarded and isolated a few hundred meters away from the border with Hungary, each of them having some 500 corpses inside.
The Hungarian media, including those writing in English, has revealed details about AFU battlefield losses without concealing the truth. Readers are led to believe that Kiev uses ethnic Hungarians as "cannon fodder" to plug holes at the frontline. The conclusion reflects futility of their lives in Ukraine, with comments under the article full of hatred for the Zelensky regime, Ukraine’s overall socio-political situation, and calls to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban for help. The entire Hungarian society adheres to the same tone, as its sentiment has been aptly described by Magyar Hirlap’s Peter Feher: "Ukraine has already lost the war, but no one is going to let it know." His attitude to what is happening is as follows: the Hungarians are dissatisfied with the war in general and with the fact of being used to fuel it in particular.
Amid Hungary’s protests and anger, the Kiev regime is in all kinds of ways seeking to ease discontent of ethnic Hungarians inside Ukraine, including tacit repressions, intimidation, and suppression. It is no secret for Kiev that the Hungarian community is striving for unification with its homeland, and wants to take their territories with them. To stop this, Kiev has resorted to the harshest methods such as total mobilization of Hungarians, annihilation of the youngest and most active men in bloodbaths like Soledar. Kiev is bleeding the Hungarian community dry, while tightening control over the local authorities in Transcarpathia. This is, among other things, evidenced by reinforced uniformed agencies, management reshuffles, and appointments to key regional positions of executives loyal to Zelensky personally. So, clampdown on the Hungarians will only expand. First, it will help other national minorities (Romanians, Poles, Bulgarians, Slovaks, etc.) see that they should reconcile and resignedly recast into Ukrainians. Second, everyone will be left with a little option and not even allowed to flee, as the front constantly needs fresh blood. All of this proves that the Ukrainian state has nearly turned into a fascist-style dictatorship indifferent to what will follow. Along this path, the Hungarians have simply become a bargaining chip and collateral damage. The question stands whether Hungary proves able to protect its people in the end.
