Steven N.
We’re living in historical times, with Russia attacking Ukraine at dawn yesterday in the largest armed conflict on European soil since the Second World War, writes Telex. Not to mention the fact that the war is raging in a country neighboring Hungary, where an ethnic Hungarian minority also lives.
With this in mind, one might then ponder what the Hungarian Minister of Defense is busy doing. Reviewing the troops? Conferring with Ukrainian military leaders? Possibly debating the situation in Ukraine with representatives from NATO?
While we cannot answer any of these questions with absolute certainty, we do know that Defense Minister Tibor Benkő managed to find time in the middle of the Ukrainian crisis to do a little campaigning for Balázs Fürjes, Fidesz’s candidate in District XII in Buda.
Minister of Defense Tibor Benkő and I had brief talks about the Russian aggression against Ukraine, then held a forum together in Buda.
-wrote Fürjes, the Secretary of State responsible for developing Budapest and the metropolitan region, on Facebook.
Fürjes then expressed his views on the conflict that broke out earlier that day, and where Hungary stood with respect to it:
Hungary’s position is clear: as a member of the Western alliance system in NATO and the EU, we support Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and we condemn Russia’s military action. It is in Hungary’s interest to resolve the conflict as soon as possible and to restore peace immediately.
On the eve of the Russian attack, Minister Benkő said that Hungary was preparing to receive tens of thousands of Ukrainian refugees.
That same day, he held a meeting with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán at the Hungarian Defense Force’s Integrated Operations Center. A map appearing in a video about this high-level meeting indicated that the government was expecting as many as 600,000 refugees to enter the country from over the Carpathian Mountains.
[Telex][Photo: Balázs Fürjes / Facebook]
