According to Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, Hungary is on the wrong side of history. Sybiha posted this on his social media page after Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó announced that Hungary had banned Robert Brovdi (otherwise of Hungarian descent), the commander of the Ukrainian army's drone unit from entering the Schengen zone over the Ukrainian attack on the Druzhba oil pipeline.
"How shameless to post this after a brutal attack by the terrorist state of Russia. Péter, if the Russian gas pipeline is more important to you than the Ukrainian children Russia killed this morning, then this is moral decay. Hungary is on the wrong side of history.
We will take mirror measures," the Ukrainian Foreign Minister wrote, hinting that Ukraine would respond to Hungary's move with similar measures.
The Hungarian Foreign Minister had announced in a video on Thursday morning that the Ukrainian commander who led the attack on the Druzhba oil pipeline had been banned from Hungary and the Schengen area. Shortly afterwards, Balázs Orbán, the Prime Minister's political director revealed that the commander in question was Robert Brovdi.
Szijjártó justified the ban by arguing that the latest Ukrainian attack on the Druzhba oil pipeline was so serious and the restoration work took so long that Hungary almost had to tap into its emergency reserves. According to the Foreign Minister, with these attacks on the pipeline, Ukraine is causing more damage to Hungary than to Russia. He also argued that the attacks violate Hungary's sovereignty and therefore cannot be left without consequences.
In the video, Szijjártó repeatedly stressed the severity of the attacks on the pipeline, even though he had previously failed to describe the Russian missile strikes on Mukachevo as such, to which the Hungarian government did not respond with any retaliation either – even though there is a sizeable Hungarian community living in the Ukrainian town and its surroundings.
The Hungarian government also did not respond to the Russian attacks on Kyiv carried out on Thursday night. Russia attacked the Ukrainian capital with missiles throughout the night, killing at least fourteen people. The attack severely damaged the building of the European Union delegation in Kyiv, as well as the Kyiv office of the British Council, an international British cultural and educational organization.
After the attack, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky commented on the lack of response from the Hungarian government, writing on his social media page: “We are waiting for Hungary's reaction. The death of children should definitely cause more emotions than anything. We are waiting for the reaction of everyone in the world who called for peace, and is now silent more often than taking a principled position.”
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