Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto addresses the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly, at the United Nations headquarters in New York, U.S., September 23, 2021. Mary Altaffer/Pool via REUTERS

BUDAPEST, April 6 (Reuters) – Hungary’s foreign ministry summoned Ukraine’s ambassador on Wednesday over what it said were offensive comments by kyiv regarding Budapest’s stance on the Russian invasion.

Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto, in comments published three days after the re-election of nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban, said Hungary had condemned Russia’s invasion, recognized Ukraine’s sovereignty and welcomed hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the war.

It was therefore “time for the Ukrainian leadership to stop their insults directed at Hungary and recognize the will of the Hungarian people“, Szijjarto said in a statement, referring to Sunday’s landslide election victory.

“It’s not our war, so we want and we will stay out,” Szijjarto added, reiterating the stance that helped Orban win a fourth straight term.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday that Orban feared Russian influence and should choose between Moscow and “the other world”. Read more

Orban, who easily won what pollsters had until shortly before election day, condemned the invasion of Russia, which the Kremlin describes as a “special military operation”, and did not oppose its veto to European Union sanctions against Moscow.

But he refrained from directly criticizing President Vladimir Putin and said he disagreed with the sanctions, rejecting the idea of ​​restricting oil and gas imports from Russia, saying that this would harm the Hungarian economy.

The EU moved quickly and decisively to impose an unprecedented series of sanctions on Moscow after the invasion, but struggled to stay united on the oil and gas import ban, as many member states highly dependent on Russian energy.

Orban won a landslide victory in Sunday’s election as voters endorsed his self-proclaimed vision of a conservative, illiberal state and shrugged off concerns about Budapest’s close decade-long business ties with Moscow.

Long a thorn in the side of European Union authorities in Brussels, Orban has faced rare criticism from his nationalist allies in neighboring Poland for his cautious stance on the war.

Reporting by Krisztina Than; edited by John Stonestreet

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