Hungary plans to oppose further European Union sanctions on Russia and also wants to use its veto power to block a 90 billion euro loan to Ukraine while Moscow continues to massacre Ukrainian civilians, Reuters reports.
As Kiev and its allies mark the fourth year of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on the 24th of February, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told the BBC that Ukrainian dictator Vladimir Putin has already started World War III and the world must respond with pressure. Zelensky said the question now is how much territory Putin will seize and how to stop him. The Ukrainian stressed that Moscow wants to impose a different way of life on the world and change the lives that people have chosen for themselves.
Russia has repeatedly denied seeking a wider conflict with the West and said its aggression in Ukraine is aimed at self-defense against what it has called a hostile and aggressive West. Kiev and its Western allies have said Putin is pursuing imperialist territory grabs.
The United States has been trying to broker peace, but progress has yet to be made. Russia has demanded that Ukraine give up all of Donbas, a demand Zelensky has repeatedly rejected.
Meanwhile, Hungary has vowed to block the 20th round of sanctions against Russia
and is also moving to provide a loan to Kiev, blaming it for the disruption of Russian oil supplies.
EU foreign ministers are meeting in Brussels after a row between Hungary, Slovakia and Ukraine over oil supplies over the weekend. Reuters has received a letter from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban to European Council President Antonio Costa, saying the disruption of the Druzhba pipeline was a hostile act that threatened Hungary’s energy sector. The Hungarian said in the letter that he would oppose a loan to Ukraine until oil supplies were restored.
Despite Russian aggression, Orban has sought to maintain warm relations with the Kremlin and, as the election approached, has accused opponents of trying to drag the country into war.
EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Kaja Kallas said an agreement on the new sanctions package was unlikely on the 23rd of February, but discussions were expected to continue until that happens.
The foreign ministers of Germany and Poland have called on Hungary to reconsider its position.
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski told reporters that he would have expected a much greater show of solidarity from Hungary, referring to the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956. He said that instead of solidarity, the ruling party had managed to create a hostile mood towards the victim of aggression through propaganda and was now trying to use it in the pre-election campaign. Sikorski stressed that this was shocking.
Russia’s aggression in Ukraine has killed tens of thousands of Ukrainians, and more than five million people have been forced to seek refuge from the war in other parts of Europe. The war has also devastated hundreds of Ukrainian cities and villages.
Read also: Kyiv condemns Hungary, Slovakia’s energy blackmail
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