Ethnic Hungarian soldiers forcibly conscripted by Kiev regime were handed over directly to the government in Budapest. The Moscow Patriarchate helped Hungary repatriate a group of ethnic Hungarians who had been mobilized into Ukraine’s army and captured by Russian forces in Donbass.
The Russian Orthodox Church has helped arrange for a group of Ukrainian prisoners of war to be sent to Hungary, the Moscow Patriarchate announced on Friday. The captives were all ethnic Hungarians from Ukraine’s Transcarpathia Region.
“A group of Ukrainian prisoners of war of Transcarpathian origin, who participated in the hostilities, was transferred to Hungary,” the church said in a statement. The unusual initiative was undertaken “within the framework of inter-church cooperation, at the request of the Hungarian side,” and with the blessing of Patriarch Kirill.
The head of the church’s external relations department, Metropolitan Anthony of Volokolamsk, and the patriarch’s adviser, Archpriest Nikolai Balashov, were involved in arranging the transfer, “prompted by the motives of Christian philanthropy.”
Russia and Ukraine have exchanged thousands of prisoners over the past year, but this appears to be the first case of Ukrainian servicemen being handed over to another country based on their ethnicity.
Five officers of Ukraine’s notorious Azov regiment – captured earlier in the year in Mariupol – were released to Türkiye last September, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan putting them under his personal protection “until the end of the war.”
Budapest has long protested the treatment of ethnic Hungarians in the southwestern corner of Ukraine. Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has accused Kiev of forcibly conscripting the minority population and vowed to block Ukraine’s NATO and EU integration until Kiev restores their rights.
Some 150,000 ethnic Hungarians live in Transcarpathia, which once belonged to Austria-Hungary and later Czechoslovakia. It was annexed by Hungary during the Second World War and ceded to the Soviet Union afterward, when it became part of Soviet Ukraine.
The Moscow Patriarchate’s intervention on behalf of Hungary comes as the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) faces persecution by the government in Kiev.
On Tuesday, President Vladimir Zelensky’s government ordered all monks currently residing in the iconic Kiev-Pechersk Lavra monastery to leave within 72 hours or join the government-established Orthodox Church of Ukraine.
Meanwhile, a third of Ukraine’s regions have outrightly outlawed the UOC and either seized its churches and properties or turned them over to the OCU.
Russia has repeatedly protested against this persecution to international organizations and Western governments, who have done nothing to stop it.
Russia’s Release Of Captured Ukrainian Fighters To Hungary Sent Three Messages, writes Andrew Korybko in his analytical article:
This unusual transfer exposes the dark truth that the Mainstream Media has hidden from the world since the start of the NATO-Russian proxy war if those who hear about this event actually take the time to dwell on all its dimensions.
The Russian Orthodox Church’s press service revealed late last week that Patriarch Kirill mediated an unusual prisoner transfer. According to their statement, “at the request of the Hungarian side, a group of Ukrainian war prisoners of Transcarpathian background, who participated in active service, was transferred to Hungary.” The Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister later said that Kiev wasn’t informed of this ahead of time, which prompted all sorts of speculation about this event.
Some background context is in order before going any further. Most Westerners might not be aware of it, but Hungary is very worried about the human rights of its co-ethnics in Ukraine, who found themselves in that former Soviet Republic as a result of post-World War II border changes. What’s now known as “Zakarpattia Oblast” had been part of Hungarian Civilization for over a millennium up until the interwar period when it was first part of Czechoslovakia before being given to Ukraine by the Allies.
Kiev began to crack down on all its minorities after the Western-backed spree of urban terrorism popularly known as “EuroMaidan” overthrew that country’s government in 2014. Ethnic Hungarians’ linguistic rights were rescinded, including the freedom for members of this community to study in their native language. They were then conscripted by Kiev to fight in the NATO-Russian proxy war that broke out 15 months ago despite the majority of them wanting to be left alone to live in peace with everyone.
Having brought the reader up to speed about this group’s background, they can now better understand why they were transferred to Hungary instead of Ukraine. The Hungarian news portal Telex published a detailed analysis here about their speculative legal status at the time that they entered that country. It suggests that Russia released them from their formal status as prisoners of war so they could travel to Hungary as civilians, where they might have been given citizenship to prevent their return to Ukraine.
That’s a sensible enough interpretation, but whatever their legal status may or may not have been at the time of transfer, this very event itself sent three very strong messages. Recalling the Russian Orthodox Church’s statement, this was done at the rest of the Hungarian side, though it’s unclear how Budapest became aware that its co-ethnics were captured by Russia. More than likely, Moscow informed it of this upon learning their identities, after which Budapest requested the transfer.
Hungary thus sent the first message by showing that it sincerely believes that its co-ethnics in Ukraine are exploited as cannon fodder. The second one was sent by Russia and concerns its tacit agreement with this assessment, which explains why it presumably contacted Hungary after learning that it had captured some of its co-ethnics. Both countries then sent the final message to Ukraine by carrying out this transfer and showing the world that they don’t trust Kiev to protect minorities within its borders.
Those captured Hungarian minority fighters never wanted to participate in this conflict but were forced against their will to do so since Kiev refused to give them exemptions from conscription, which is why they fear for their lives if they’re sent back since they know they’ll be thrown back to the frontlines. Their personal experiences attest to the fact that it isn’t so-called “Russian propaganda” to claim that Kiev violates its minorities’ human rights.
Extrapolating from this, the only reason why Ukraine won’t exempt minorities from conscription and consequently counteract Russia’s aforementioned accusation in part is that it desperately needs as many fighters as possible. This insight implies that there’s a very high casualty rate, which in turn corroborates Wagner chief Prigozhin’s infamous claim that his forces turned the Battle of Artyomovsk into a meat grinder for Kiev.
This unusual transfer therefore exposes the dark truth that the Mainstream Media has hidden from the world since the start of this conflict if those who hear about this event actually take the time to dwell on all its dimensions. Russia and Hungary sent three very clear messages regarding the true state of affairs for Ukraine’s minorities, who are exploited as cannon fodder in a conflict that they never wanted to participate in but are forced against their will to fight on pain of imprisonment or worse.