Kiev ‘crossed a line’ – Orban

Intimidation attempts by Kiev will not make Budapest retract its opposition to Ukraine’s EU membership bid or agree to provide financial aid to the country, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos last week, Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky said that Orban – who has consistently criticized EU sanctions on Russia and called for diplomatic solution to the conflict between Moscow and Kiev – “deserves a smack upside the head” for what he called “selling out European interests.” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrey Sibiga said later he believes that Orban “is a threat to his own people.”

On Monday, Orban instructed Hungary’s foreign minister to summon Ukraine’s ambassador to Budapest, saying national security services had concluded that comments and actions by Ukrainian politicians were part of a coordinated effort to interfere in Hungary’s upcoming parliamentary election and threaten the country’s sovereignty.

On Wednesday, he warned on X that the Ukrainian government has “crossed a line.”

“They want a new, pro-Ukraine government in Budapest,” he said.

“We did not seek conflict, yet for days now Hungary has been in the crosshairs. Still, neither threats from the president, nor from the foreign minister, nor from extremist military groups will deter us from standing up for the interests of Hungarians,” the prime minister wrote.

Budapest “will not allow Ukraine to be pushed into the European Union within 2 years by trampling on EU law – that would mean importing the war as well,” he insisted.

Fast-tracked membership for Kiev is reportedly part of a US-backed $800 billion reconstruction ‘prosperity’ plan that was privately circulated to EU member states by the European Commission earlier this month. The idea has already raised concerns among many member nations.

“We will not send money to Ukraine – it is better off with Hungarian families than in the bathroom of a Ukrainian oligarch,” Orban said, referring to a golden toilet discovered by investigators at the Kiev apartment of Zelensky’s associate, Timur Mindich, who fled the country amid massive corruption scandal last November.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in October that Hungary deserves respect because despite being a “NATO and the EU member-state, [it] takes a special position in terms of sovereignty and defending its own interests.”