Viktor Orbán remains lukewarm on improving legal protections for Hungarians in Ukraine and continues to cite this issue as a pretext for withholding military aid.
Under the watchful eye of their teacher, a group of students from western Ukraine used a scalpel and forceps to dissect a pig’s heart during a weekend biology class.
The class was held in Hungarian, and the students, members of a large Hungarian ethnic minority, have become a source of discord in relations between Hungary and Ukraine – a source of discord that threatens to thwart key financial support to Kyiv as she struggles to defeat the Russian invasion.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has long accused the Ukrainian government of undermining the rights of these students, and the approximately 75,000 Hungarians residing in Ukraine’s Zakarpattia region, to speak their native language in education and public administration.
His government blocked crucial European Union funding for Ukraine and threatened to hamper the war-ravaged country’s efforts to eventually join the bloc, sending diplomatic relations to new lows.
A linguistic conflict
The language conflict has its roots in Ukraine’s efforts to strengthen its national identity after Russian-backed rebels took control of two eastern regions of the country in 2014 and Moscow annexed the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea.
Aiming to combat Russian influence, but ultimately affecting other minority languages, a law was adopted in 2017 which made Ukrainian the compulsory language of study beyond the fifth year, provoking the anger of Romanian, Bulgarian and Hungarian minorities.
However, in December, Ukraine changed its education and language laws to comply with EU membership requirements and restored many of the language rights demanded by Budapest – prompting a sigh of relief from the from the Hungarian community in the region.
Since the Russian invasion, Viktor Orbán, widely seen as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest European ally, has emerged as a consistent opponent of military and financial aid to Kiev and sanctions against Moscow, often using the minority Hungarian to justify its lukewarm support for Ukraine.
Transcarpathia supports Viktor Orbán
Hungarians in Zakarpattia largely support Orbán, but also support kyiv’s ambitions to join the EU. Yet Orbán expressed skepticism, commenting in November that EU membership was “light years away” and signaling that full language rights for Hungarians in Ukraine were a precondition for his support.
Mr Zubánics, who signed an open letter to Mr Orbán in December urging him to lift his opposition to Ukraine’s entry into the EU, said he was optimistic, despite tensions between Budapest and kyiv.
“In our mentality and culture, we consider ourselves European citizens.”, did he declare. “We are aware that this will not happen immediately, as it will be a long process, sometimes educational and sometimes painful for everyone.
The Hungarian government has provided generous financial support to the Ukrainian minority, seeking to strengthen their Hungarian identity and ties to Budapest. It simplified the procedure for acquiring Hungarian nationality, which Ukraine, which does not recognize dual nationality, opposed.
Monday’s meeting between Szijjártó and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba – their first since the war began in February 2022 – as well as plans for a meeting between Orbán and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, suggest a partial thaw.
But the Hungarian government remained firm: despite improving conditions for Hungarians in Transcarpathia, it is not yet ready to fully support Ukraine. According to Mr. Zubánics, both parties will have to redouble their efforts to achieve this.
“Diplomacy is partly a high art, but sometimes it feels more like theater than real life“, he said. “In any case, we must now move forward on concrete points, and I think the parties have much more in common than what separates them, but this also requires a political will.