Orbán cabinet: Approving weapons deliveries to Ukraine dangerous

Hungary’s ban on weapons deliveries to Ukraine serves to protect the country while “their potential approval, as advocated by the left, would be dangerous”, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said on Facebook on Monday.

“Ever since the start of the war in Ukraine, there’s been a constant debate in this country about the stance that should be taken in the interest of preserving Hungary’s peace and security,” Szijjártó said.

“The government has made clear decisions: We will send neither troops nor weapons and we will not allow the transit of lethal weapons across the country bound for Ukraine,” he said.

“The left has taken the opposite stance,” the minister said.

“They would send weapons, potentially even soldiers, and have called the ban on the transit of weapons straight up betrayal.”

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But the danger of weapons transits “could finally become clear to everyone yesterday if it hasn’t been already”, Szijjártó said, noting the Russian airstrike on an army base some 20 km from the Ukrainian-Polish border which had housed a consignment of foreign weapons.

Szijjártó said he hoped everyone now understood that

“if we hadn’t banned the transit of weapons deliveries through Hungary, they would have been handed over on the Hungary-Ukraine border, which would have resulted in the threat of a similar attack in Transcarpathia (Kárpátalja), near the border”.

“No sane person could want this,” the minister said. “We have made a clear choice and we stand by it: Hungary cannot be dragged into the war.”

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