(Reuters) – Ukraine said on Monday that Hungary has been ignoring requests for contact with prisoners of war that Kyiv said had been secretly transferred from Russia and called the move an act of self interest on Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s side.
Hungary, which under Orban has forged strong political and economic ties with Russia and has not cut them since Moscow invaded Ukraine 16 months ago, said on June 9 that it had received a group of 11 Ukrainian prisoners of war from Russia.
“All attempts by Ukrainian diplomats over recent days to establish direct contact with Ukrainian citizens have failed,” Ukraine’s foreign ministry spokesperson Oleg Nikolenko said on his Facebook page.
“This, as well as information received from the relatives of some of them, indicates that the Hungarian authorities’ assurances of the alleged free status of Ukrainian defenders in Hungary are not true,” he said.
Hungary’s foreign ministry has not immediately responded to Reuters’ requests for a comment.
Hungarian and international media quoted Orban’s chief-of-staff Gergely Gulyas as saying on Monday that the soldiers arrived in Hungary “on their own free will” and Kyiv was informed after their transfer.
“They can also leave the country freely at any time of their own free will, we do not check or monitor them,” Gulyas was quoted as saying.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said that the operation to transfer the prisoners was carried out solely in the political interests of Orban.
“There was one simple goal: Viktor Orban had to show the Hungarians both in Hungary and outside of Hungary that he was their only defender,” Kuleba told the Ukrainian public television on Monday.
(Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Editing by Michael Perry)
