MOSCOW, April 6. /TASS/. Ukrainian Ambassador to Budapest Lyubov Nepop has been summoned to the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade over insulting remarks by Ukrainian authorities directed against the Hungarian leadership, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Wednesday.

"The Ukrainian leaders should stop insulting Hungary and recognize the will of Hungarian people," the foreign minister’s statement posted on Facebook (outlawed in Russia, owned by Meta Platforms, Inc. which is recognized as extremist in Russia) said.

The Hungarian top diplomat reiterated that the Hungarian government condemned Russia’s military operation in Ukraine from the start, supported the sovereignty of the neighboring country and began to provide aid to the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees.

That said, he emphasized that the security of Hungary and the Hungarian people is a top priority for the government. "Therefore we won’t deliver arms [to Ukraine] nor vote for energy sanctions [against Russia]," he asserted.

The diplomat noted that on April 3, the vast majority of the Hungarians supported the ruling party led by Prime Minister Viktor Orban at parliamentary elections, thus supporting his policy with regards to Ukraine. "I think that this is sufficiently clear and understandable," he said.

"We realize that the Ukrainians have their own interests and we don’t even argue with them," the official noted. However, he stressed that "the statements <...> regretting the expression of the will of the Hungarian people are inadmissible."

On February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a televised address that in response to a request by the heads of the Donbass republics he had made a decision to carry out a special military operation in order to protect people "who have been suffering from abuse and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years." The Russian leader stressed that Moscow had no plans of occupying Ukrainian territories. Following this, the US, the EU, the UK and a number of other countries announced the introduction of sanctions against Russian legal entities and private individuals.