Would Hungary claim territories in Transcarpathia, Ukraine?

“As long as this government is in power”, Hungary will not deliver weapons or send soldiers to Ukraine – Gergely Gulyás, the prime minister’s chief of staff said yesterday. In connection with a statement of opposition prime ministerial candidate Péter Márki-Zay, who said refusing transit of deliveries to Ukraine from other countries constituted “treason”, Gulyás said such a step would “create risks that we better avoid if we want to protect Transcarpathia and the Hungarians living there.”

Gulyás noted that Hungary launched a large-scale development of its armed forces a few years ago “as if it had a premonition of the possibility of armed conflict,” Gulyás said. “The members of the current German parliament at the time talked about the importance of pacifism,” he said. “Europe may develop self-defence capabilities as a consequence of the war,” he said.

While Russia is Hungary’s key economic partner in ensuring energy supplies, NATO and the EU are its allies, Gulyás said.

Ties with Russia were “more a marriage of convenience rather than a love affair,”

he said. Regarding territorial claims, he cleared that the government stood on the ground of the Budapest Memorandum, which guaranteed the borders of Ukraine.

Regarding possible outcomes of the war, Gulyás said the ideal solution would be if both parties retreated to antebellum territories. “Together with our allies, we will decide whether to accept the new status quo. We haven’t enough forces to have a significant impact on the outcome,” he said.

Gulyás called the Russian demand that NATO restore its 1997 borders, before the former Communist states became members, “impossible”.

NATO membership “guarantees the greatest possible security for Hungary,”

he said.