Hungary wants to propose that the EU develop a common position on the Ukrainian authorities, whose actions led to the death of a Hungarian citizen from Transcarpathia during forced conscription into military service, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said, commenting on the killing of a Hungarian and Ukrainian citizen by territorial recruitment centres (TRC) employees.
“Tomorrow, at the meeting of the EU Council of Foreign Ministers, I will raise this issue and urge the European Union to take a common position and say whether Brussels considers acceptable the violence and brutal coercive measures practised during mobilisation in Ukraine,” the foreign minister said on Tuesday.
The minister called the death of a Hungarian citizen from Transcarpathia at the hands of Ukrainian military registration and enlistment office employees “unacceptable simply because he did not want to go to war” and demanded an explanation from the Ukrainian authorities.
He pointed out that cases of cruel treatment of people who do not want to go to the front have been captured on numerous videos made in Ukraine.
“People who have no training, are often completely unfit for work and unsuitable for military service, are being kidnapped in front of their families and small children and forced to go to the front. People are brutally beaten and beaten to death because they do not want to go to war and take part in completely senseless killings. This is unacceptable,” Szijjártó said.
The Mandiner reported last Thursday, citing relatives, that 45-year-old József Szebesztien died in hospital three weeks after military officials in Ukraine grabbed him on the street, shoved him into a minibus, took him to a recruitment centre and beat him with metal bars. The sister of the deceased posted footage showing Ukrainian soldiers mocking her brother. The Hungarian Foreign Ministry summoned the Ukrainian ambassador and demanded an explanation.
Speaking on Kossuth radio on Friday morning, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said that a country where military registration office employees beat people to death during forced mobilisation cannot become a member of the European Union.
