Russian PoW transfer to Hungary: Kyiv outraged, Hungary deputy PM talks about ‘people’

Zsolt Semjén, the deputy prime minister for church policy and church diplomacy, has said his help in coordinating the transfer of 11 Transcarpathian prisoners of war to Hungary had been his “human and patriotic duty”.

News portal Index cited an announcement by the Russian Orthodox Church that a group of Ukrainian prisoners of war from the western Transcarpathia region had been transferred to Hungary at Budapest’s request and “with the blessing of Patriarch Kirill“. Semjén told news portal atv.hu on Friday that the transfer was “a gesture by the Russian Orthodox Church towards Hungary”, to which the prisoners had owed their freedom, MTI wrote.

“This is my human and patriotic duty,” the deputy PM said. Atv.hu said it understands that the transfer had been coordinated by Semjén and was in line with Pope Francis’s mission to facilitate prisoner exchanges. The website said its sources had confirmed that the transfer had been organised by the churches. The Hungarian Charity Service of the Order of Malta was also involved in the transfer. The charity told MTI on Friday that it had received a request to help save lives. The organisation said that as in the last three decades, it had fulfilled the tasks that coincided with its mission, but declined to comment further.

Telex.hu suggested in an article that the prisoners of war transferred from Russia to Hungary were probably not prisoners of war, but Transcarpathian people Moscow wanted to set free. Telex believes they arrived in Hungary via Serbia, where Russian planes can still commute. Telex refers to Deputy PM Semjén, who continuously talked about people instead of PoWs.

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