Hundreds of protesters gathered outside Ukraine’s embassy in Budapest on Friday afternoon to demonstrate against Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s threat directed at Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
According to reports, participants arrived carrying Hungarian flags and banners at the demonstration, which was organized by the National Resistance Movement. They said they wanted to protest against recent steps by the Ukrainian leadership and what they described as attempts to interfere in Hungary’s upcoming parliamentary elections.
The main speaker at the event was Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó, who thanked the protesters for attending and said their presence showed that Hungary is ‘unwilling to yield to pressure.’
‘We do not accept blackmail and we do not accept threats,’ Szijjártó stressed, adding that for more than four years Hungary has been resisting attempts to drag the country into war through blackmail and political pressure.
The foreign minister underlined that the Hungarian government’s objective remains clear: Hungary must stay out of the war. ‘For us, Hungary’s peace and security come first. Nothing is more important than that…What is happening in Ukraine is not our war. We were not attacked, so we do not need to be defended,’ he declared.
The demonstration was organized to show solidarity with Orbán and to condemn Zelenskyy’s threat directed at the prime minister on Thursday. As Hungarian Conservative reported, Zelenskyy said that he hopes Orbán will not block the €90 billion EU loan to Kyiv; otherwise, ‘we will give the address of that person to our armed forces, and let them call him and speak with him in their own language.’
Orbán reposted Zelenskyy’s statement, saying that the remarks ‘are not about me’, but that Zelenskyy is ‘threatening Hungary.’ ‘Unfortunately for him, he cannot stop me from protecting Hungarian families,’ Orbán declared.
Zelenskyy’s remarks were condemned by several leading European figures, including Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, and even the European Commission.
During his speech, Szijjártó also sent a direct message to Zelenskyy: ‘Listen carefully, President Zelenskyy: Hungarians cannot be threatened…As long as Hungary has a sovereign national government, Hungarian young people will not be sent to fight in Ukraine.’
At the end of his speech, the foreign minister called on Ukraine to stop what he described as interference in Hungary’s parliamentary elections and to end political pressure. ‘We do not ask—we demand—that the Ukrainians stop interfering in the parliamentary election, stop the threats and the blackmail,’ he said.
Posting a video from the demonstration, political director of the Hungarian prime minister Balázs Orbán reiterated the message: ‘Stop the intimidation, stop meddling in Hungary’s elections, and stop trying to drag Hungary into war,’ he called on Kyiv, adding that ‘Hungary will not be bullied.’
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