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One for All, All for One: Hungarians Want to Protect Their Kin in Ukraine

© AFP 2023 / ALEXANDER ZOBINLocal residents of the village of Rakoshyno, some 30 km from the western Ukrainian city of Uzhgorod, in the province of Transcarpathia
Local residents of the village of Rakoshyno, some 30 km from the western Ukrainian city of Uzhgorod, in the province of Transcarpathia - Sputnik International
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Hungarian Parliament's national security committee discussed the situation regarding the Hungarian community in Ukraine. The session focused on ethnic Hungarians being drafted to the Ukrainian Army in larger numbers than their proportion to the rest of the population.

Ukrainian servicemen get inside armoured personnel carriers (APC) during a ceremony to hand over weapons, military equipment and aircraft to the army at a firing range outside Zhytomyr January 5, 2015 - Sputnik International
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Hungary’s national security committee discussed the situation of ethnic Hungarians living in Ukraine, who are being disproportionately drafted to Ukraine’s army, Hungarian government officials said on Wednesday.

Ethnic minorities living in Ukraine, including the Hungarians, are being drafted to the Ukrainian army in larger numbers than their proportion to the rest of the population. Bernadett Szѐl, a member of Hungary’s Green Party LMP, described the situation as “grave” and added that Hungary needs to step up and do more to protect their ethnic kin in Ukraine.

Soldiers of Ukrainian army ride on a tank in the port city of Mariupol, southeastern Ukraine, Friday, Sept. 5, 2014 - Sputnik International
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Another Hungarian official, Adam Mirkóczki, said the country should change its policy and be ready to welcome ethnic Hungarians fleeing Ukraine. He also demanded that Hungary should not “allow Ukraine to draft a single Hungarian” and if necessary even blackmail Ukraine by withholding gas supplies, Hungary Today reports.

Meanwhile, Ukraine started the fourth wave of mobilization on January 20. About 62,000 draftees already received their call-up orders and will be sent to the army within the next few months.

Last week, Ukrainian hacker group CyberBerkut leaked a number of classified documents from Ukraine’s top military circles, revealing massive casualties and terrible morale among the Kiev troops fighting in eastern Ukraine. According to these documents, the government in Kiev is struggling to keep things under control, desperately trying to cover up the real situation in the country’s east.

A group of Ukrainian soldiers at a military base - Sputnik International
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The truth is shocking: over 1,100 Ukrainian soldiers perished and more than 100 military vehicles destroyed within the last few weeks, a large number of servicemen defected from the army, preferring to surrender at the mercy of the Donbas pro-independence forces.

As the military conflict becomes prolonged and more blood is getting spilled, many choose to flee the country to avoid being sent to the war zone.  Kiev is desperately trying to scrape together a bigger army and Ukraine’s ethnic minorities are first to get drafted, in disproportionally high numbers.

According to the latest census, around 150,000 ethnic Hungarians live in Transcarpathia, a region which had belonged to Hungary before the First World War, to Czechoslovakia in the interwar period and to the Soviet Union following the Second World War, and which later became part of the independent Ukraine in 1991.

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