Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi criticized Hungary’s behavior in a wide-ranging interview with Scandinavian media, stressing that its relations with Russia do not correspond to its status as a NATO member, Ukrainian Pravda reports.

“How to resolve the dispute with Budapest? The only question is what Budapest wants. It seems to me that there is political confusion among the political elites in Hungary. A very strange situation: can a NATO country stick to Russia and be against NATO?”.

According to Zelenskyi, no NATO ally can support a country that considers the North Atlantic Alliance an enemy.

“I think this is unreasonable behavior. I express my subjective opinion. An ally is not only words, but also beliefs and actions. This is a union of states with the same vision of security and values. They have different attitudes to certain moments, but there is a treaty of allies who protect each other and their values,” said the Kyiv leader.

The President of Ukraine believes that Hungary should not influence Ukraine’s accession to NATO.

“And if all the allies say: ‘Russia calls us an enemy, we must put Russia in its place,’ then the state cannot say: ‘No, Russia is our ally.’ That cannot be. It means that you are no longer a NATO ally So if you are de jure an ally but de facto you are working against [Alianței], then you should not express your opinion about whether Ukraine should join NATO. And there is no need to interfere,” Zelensky added.

Earlier, Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orbán expressed his indignation when the Secretary General of NATO stated during his visit to Kyiv that Ukraine should become a member of the North Atlantic Alliance in the future.

Orban puts sticks in the wheels of Ukraine in NATO

Orban also recently stated that Ukraine is a “financially non-existent country” and that without the support of its partners, the war would end immediately.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has consistently stated that Ukraine will join NATO in the medium term after the end of the Russian invasion.

However, Viktor Orbán was quick to express his surprise at the NATO chief’s latest statement on the matter.

“What?!” Hungary’s prime minister exclaimed in a one-word tweet Friday afternoon in response to a POLITICO article about Jens Stoltenberg’s comments.

Orbán’s remarks were immediately appreciated in Moscow, but Kyiv reminded Hungary of its own dependence on EU funding.

At a summit in Bucharest in 2008, NATO members, including Hungary, agreed that Ukraine would eventually join the alliance, but then backed away from immediate membership, largely due to opposition from France and Germany.

NATO is a military alliance consisting of 31 countries, and acceptance of a new member requires unanimity. Hungary, like any other NATO member, can veto the entry of new members.

Joining the Western military bloc provides the advantage of the protection of Article 5 of the founding treaty, which states that an attack on one member is an attack on all. This means that if Ukraine, as a NATO member, is invaded or attacked, all NATO members, including Hungary, must come to its aid.

Hungary has been blocking summits between NATO representatives and the Ukrainian military leadership for years

Hungary, which joined NATO in 1999 and has been suspected of pro-Russian sentiment since the start of the war in Ukraine, has already demonstrated its temptation to use its power as leverage against alliance expansion. After several months of delays in March, it was the penultimate NATO country, the last being Turkey, to ratify Finland’s accession to NATO, which has already been approved by all members in the summer of 2022 at the Alliance’s summit in Madrid. Budapest also joined Turkey in blocking Sweden’s bid. In March, government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs accused Swedish officials of sitting on “a crumbling throne of moral supremacy,” according to the BBC.

On the other hand, relations between Kyiv and Budapest have long been strained, and Viktor Orbán has been less critical of Russian leader Vladimir Putin than other Western leaders. And although his government condemned the illegal invasion of Ukraine, the Hungarian leader did not send weapons to Kyiv and continues to conduct business with Moscow in the energy sector. Hungary has also blocked summits between NATO officials and the Ukrainian military leadership for years, claiming that it is concerned about the rights of Hungarian speakers in western Ukraine, the BBC notes.

Despite his statements, Jens Stoltenberg admitted during a meeting at the American Ramstein Air Base in Germany that Kyiv’s approach to joining the Alliance is not an immediate priority. “The main task now is, of course, how to make Ukraine win (in the war with Russia),” he said. “Without a sovereign and independent Ukraine, there is no point in discussing accession,” Stoltenberg said.

But Budapest’s position promises to ignite a new dispute within NATO, the BBC notes. The bloc’s eastern members have spent months pressuring officials to provide Kyiv with a timeline for entry and signals that it is making progress toward joining the alliance.

“DeNATOvka”

In addition, the ruling Fidesz party of Hungary, led by Viktor Orbán, did not support the draft resolution on the arrest of Russian President Vladimir Putin on a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court.

And Viktor Orbán’s government began mass dismissals of officers. According to a decree signed on Thursday by Hungarian President Katalin Novak at the request of Defense Minister Kristof Salaj-Bobrovnytskyi, the Chief of Staff of the Hungarian Army, Lieutenant General Romulus Ruszin-Szendi, was dismissed from his post. , reports MTIS.

The legal basis for the mass firing of senior officers is contained in a decree issued in January by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government. The decree allows the Minister of Defense to dismiss servicemen who have reached the age of 45 and have at least 25 years of military service, with two months’ notice.

Some see in this approach what is called “denatism”, others consider it a natural event.

Opposition politicians say the move is aimed at weakening Hungary’s pro-Western orientation and filling the army with politically loyal people.

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