Hungary FM: We Won’t Let Ukraine Turn Hungary Into an Intelligence Operations Zone

Hungary will not allow Ukraine to turn the country into an intelligence operations zone ahead of the April elections. This is our country, and no one can pull stunts like this on us, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto emphasized in Ozd, on Thursday.

Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Szijjarto (Source: Facebook)

According to a statementissued by Hungary's foreign ministry, Mr. Szijjarto emphasized at a public forum in the city that the upcoming election is a matter of national fate not just for Hungary, but for Ukraine as well. Hungary does not want to enter the war, hand over the people’s money, or support the neighboring country’s accession to the European Union.

Peter Szijjarto, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Photo: MTI/Tamas Hathazi 

We don’t want Hungary dragged into the war. We don’t want the Ukrainians taking Hungarian taxpayers’ money. We don’t want to be forced to buy energy sources at three times the current price, and we don’t want the Ukrainians bringing the war into the European Union. That is in our interest. And that is why we will fight for it on April 12,

 – he stressed.

“The problem, my friends, is that Ukraine’s interests are exactly the opposite. They are 180 degrees opposed to ours, because they want all of Europe, including Hungary, to go to war. They want Europe to finance their war with our money. They want to join the European Union, and they want us to stop buying cheap Russian oil and gas,” he continued.

There is no compromise between these two interests. They are completely opposed. And from this, you can understand why we are seeing the most open, the most aggressive, the most shameless Ukrainian intelligence intervention in a Hungarian parliamentary election in history,

 – he underlined.

FM Szijjarto argued that President Volodymyr Zelensky has effectively turned Hungary into a Ukrainian intelligence operations zone in the weeks leading up to the parliamentary election—a move he called unacceptable.

“A completely shameless intelligence operation is also taking place using a Hungarian journalist. It is outrageous that a journalist, who considers Anita Orban a friend, who claims he will have decisive influence over staffing in a potential Tisza-aligned future foreign ministry, and who collaborates with foreign intelligence services, is being used to wiretap the Hungarian foreign minister,” he said.

This is unacceptable. It is a very serious attack on our sovereignty, which we will investigate and, of course, defend against,

 – he added.

“We will not give up our sovereignty. We will defend it—and we will defend it with a major parliamentary election victory,” Szijjarto added.

“We will not allow Ukrainian agents to turn Hungary into a Ukrainian intelligence operations zone ahead of the parliamentary election. This is our country, and no one can do this to us,” he concluded.

Cover photo: Szijjarto Peter, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Source: Facebook)