Hungary’s new foreign minister, Anita Orbán, on Thursday criticized Russia over recent drone attacks on the western Ukrainian region of Transcarpathia.
The politician from the centre-right Tisza Party announced on her Facebook page that she had summoned the Russian ambassador in Budapest and told him that the Hungarian government condemns these attacks in the strongest possible terms.
“We expect [Russia] to cease its aggression against civilians immediately,” Orbán added.
The minister, who is not related to the ousted prime minister Viktor Orbán, took office on Tuesday. Following the Tisza Party’s overwhelming victory in the parliamentary election on April 12, the National Assembly elected its leader, Péter Magyar, as prime minister last Saturday.
Hungary borders the Ukrainian region of Transcarpathia to the east. According to Hungarian sources, up to 100,000 ethnic Hungarians live there. The right-wing populist Viktor Orbán had hardly ever criticized Russia, even after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
He and his foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, maintained a sometimes friendly relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin and his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov.