BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Hungary on Thursday banned three Ukrainian military officials from its territory over the death in Ukraine of a Hungarian-Ukrainian dual citizen, as diplomatic relations between the neighboring countries rapidly deteriorate.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán last week accused Ukrainian authorities of beating the man to death during his mobilization in the Ukrainian military.
Ukraine, which has been battling against a full-scale invasion by Russia since February 2022, has rejected Orbán’s claim, saying the man was a Ukrainian citizen who had left his military unit without authorization and later checked himself into a hospital which found no signs of physical injury indicating violence.
Ukrainian officials have promised a full investigation into the man’s death, which they said had been caused by a pulmonary embolism. But Orbán and media outlets associated with his government have continually insisted that the man was beaten to death by military recruiters, despite providing no conclusive evidence.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó told a news conference Thursday that Hungary would ban three military officials in response to the death. He did not name them, but said they were a head of personnel for the military, a regional commander and a Defense Ministry official in charge of mobilization.
Szijjártó added that Hungary’s government on Wednesday had requested that the three individuals be put on a European Union sanctions list.
“Until the sanctions are implemented, we have today taken measures to ban all three individuals from entering Hungary,” he said.
Orbán, a vehement critic of Kyiv and its fight to ward off Russia’s invasion, has charted a starkly different course than his EU partners in his approach to Ukraine, refusing to supply it with weapons or allow their transit through Hungarian territory, demanding sanctions relief and rapprochement with Russia, and adopting a combative stance toward both Kyiv and its EU backers.
In recent weeks, he has escalated a sweeping anti-Ukraine campaign and lobbied intensely against the embattled country’s eventual accession into the EU, portraying Ukraine’s membership in the bloc as an existential threat that would bring war, crime and economic ruin.
Last month, Orbán blocked a common position in the European Council on support for Ukraine and its path toward EU citizenship, the only leader among the bloc’s 27 member states to do so.
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