The Hungarian government has attracted criticism for releasing a public information video in which a map of Ukraine is depicted without Crimea. Vladimir Putin’s forces invaded and subsequently annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014, though Kyiv still claim the territory as their own, with considerable backing from NATO allies. The Hungarian government, currently under scrutiny for its failure to conform with European values, released the video days before Hungary’s remembrance of the anniversary of its own territorial decimation by the Allied Powers at the end of WWI.
The video, on the government’s official YouTube channel, designated the occupied Crieman peninsula as part of Russia on a map, failing to show support of the sovereignty and territorial integrity, while repeatedly calling for a ceasefire and a freezing of troop positions in the Ukraine. They. Ukraine’s Charge d’Affaires in Budapest protested the video.
“Playing along with the aggressive policy of Russia does not contribute to the prompt restoration of peace in Europe, which the Hungarian government advocates in public,” said the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, while a spokesman for President Volodymyr Zelenskiy termed it an “insult” to the values of the European Union.
Hungary, which was partitioned from two thirds of its territory by the victorious western European powers in 1919, mourns the anniversary of its territorial losses on June 4th. About 400,000 of those left outside the new borders emigrated to remain within the modern Hungarian state.
