Artificial tension before the elections: who benefits from Hungary’s conflict with Ukraine

A diplomatic standoff is unfolding between Hungary and Ukraine, which is the result of internal political games. The tension has no real basis, but serves as a tool to mobilize the electorate before the vote in Hungary and plays into the Kremlin’s hands.

This opinion was expressed on the air of “Pryamoy” by Andriy Gorodnytskyi, a political scientist, candidate of philosophical sciences.

According to him, politicians from the neighboring state are exploiting Ukraine’s difficult situation to gain the support of citizens based on antagonistic feelings. “What’s most interesting is that this is an artificially created conflict that does not exist in principle, but we know the reason for this – it is the elections that are taking place in Hungary,” the studio guest noted.

“At the same time, statistics show a significant increase in anti-Ukrainian sentiment among Hungarians. If earlier the level of hostility was around 23%, then after active media campaigns it jumped to almost 40%,” Horodyntsky added.

He also drew a parallel with the situation in Poland, where political forces also relied on manipulating history and symbolism for the sake of ratings. The political scientist believes that this situation is a consequence of many years of shortcomings of Ukrainian diplomacy in this area.

In addition, according to Gorodnytsky, the anti-Ukrainian steps of the Hungarian authorities have a clear financial color and are supported by Moscow’s interests. Vig drew attention to the fact that the Russian presence in European political processes has deep roots since the times of the Soviet Union.

“This whole Orban group receives approximately 500 to 1 billion euros a year from the Druzhba oil pipeline, from this oil, that is, they simply receive their margin and feel comfortable,” explains Andriy Gorodnytsky.

We will remind, recently the Hungarian authorities in Budapest detained seven Ukrainian citizens – employees of Oschadbank – and seized the money they were transporting. At the same time, the Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orban visited the anti-terrorist center on the day of the seizure of the Ukrainian collection vehicles. Later that day, the security forces of this unit seized a car with currency and gold.

Subsequently, seven collectors of Oschadbank, who were previously detained in Hungary, were deported from the country and returned to Ukraine . Meanwhile, the National Bank of Ukraine is working to return the cargo from the collector’s cars , which were detained by the Hungarian authorities. The regulator called the incident a provocation without legal grounds. It also became known that the Hungarian authorities are ready to transfer two confiscated Oschadbank cars to Ukraine, however, they do not plan to return the funds and gold .

According to political scientist Serhiy Taran, the incident with the detention in Hungary of a vehicle carrying a large sum of money is artificially tied to the election campaign of Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who is currently trying to increase his own rating through the confrontation with Ukraine.

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