Leading Ukrainian politician banned from Schengen Area at request of Hungarian government

Viktor Baloha, member of the Ukrainian Parliament, shared in a Facebook post that he had been banned from the Schengen Area. According to him, this move was not only the initiative of the Hungarian government but also the personal involvement of the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

According to press reports, in January, it was already speculated that the Hungarian government may have requested the banning of Baloha and his family from the Schengen Area, index.hu writes.

Anti-Hungarian actions

Speculation has been circulating in the press since last month. According to the reports, the Hungarian government may have requested a five-year ban on the Baloha family from the Schengen Area. The initial suspicion of a ban was triggered by the family’s failure to enter Slovakia in mid-January. No official confirmation of the ban was given at the time.

Viktor Baloha and his son Andriy Baloha, the Mayor of Mukachevo, have committed several anti-Hungarian actions in recent years and months in Transcarpathia, Ukraine, a region populated by a large number of Hungarian minority. The Hungarian government has reportedly requested their banning from the Schengen Area because of these actions.

Shortly after the incident, Andriy Baloha took another anti-Hungarian measure in Mukachevo. This time, referring to a new regulation, Hungarian flags were removed from several public institutions in Mukachevo and several villages inhabited by Hungarian communities, index.hu reported earlier.

• Read also: Reader’s letter: Who is responsible for national oppression in Transcarpathia?

Viktor Baloha confirmed the news

Viktor Baloha recently confirmed in a Facebook post that he and his family are indeed banned from the Schengen Area.

“I received an honor from Orbán, a shallow figure of our time, for posing a threat to Hungary’s national security,”

he wrote.

According to him, the Hungarian authorities were intimidated by the removal of a statue of a turul, a symbol of Hungary, from the Palanok Castle in Mukachevo a few months ago. He believes that such decisions only prove the success of the fight for “Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty”.

He also added that the Hungarian government had earlier banned members of the Security Service of Ukraine who had launched an investigation against László Brenzovics, president of the Cultural Alliance of Hungarians in Sub-Carpathia (CASH), and that some activists from Lviv had also met a similar fate. According to the post, he will continue to visit “friends of Ukraine” in the European Union despite the ban. He concluded, “by God’s grace, we will survive Putin, Orbán and everything else.”

Source: index.hu