Ukrainian FM accuses PM Orbán of insensitivity
December 29th, 2022Hungarian news outlets reproduce the Ukrainian statement without commenting on it, but pro-government news sites illustrate the remarks with media photos to express their disapproval.
In a written statement on Tuesday, the press service of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry accused the Hungarian Prime Minister of ‘demonstrating a pathological disregard for Ukraine and the Ukrainian people’ and urged him to ‘use his close ties with Moscow to make it stop its aggression’.
The document was a reaction to the Prime Minister’s Christmas interview with Magyar Nemzet, in which he said that Ukraine can only go on fighting as long as it receives weapons and financial support from America. ‘If the Americans want peace, there will be peace’, he added. (PM Orbán also told the main pro-government daily that Hungary supports Ukraine; has a vested interest in the existence of a sovereign Ukraine and in ensuring that Russia cannot represent a danger to Europe. However, ‘we are not interested in giving up all economic ties with Russia’, he emphasized.
Above quotes from the Ukrainian statement, Mandiner publishes a large picture of Prime Minister Orbán sitting on a bed beside two schoolgirls – obviously Ukrainian refugees – in an improvised refugee reception centre in a school gymnasium. In a similar gesture, Pesti Srácok couples the text of the Ukrainian accusations with a photo of the Prime Minister surrounded by a group of Ukrainian refugees.