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Hungary wouldn’t want to border Russia — Orban

The prime minister said that not having Russia right across the border would serve Hungary's national security interests best

BUDAPEST, February 27. /TASS/. Hungary would not like to have a common border with Russia because it has bad memories of the times when it shared a border with the Soviet Union, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said. He made the statement at a news conference following a meeting in Prague with his counterparts from the other three countries of the Visegrad Group: Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

According to the news website Index, the prime minister said that not having Russia right across the border would serve Hungary's national security interests best because the country has "bad memories" of the time when it did.

Orban said this meeting of the Visegrad Group leaders was the most difficult of the meetings he had ever attended. According to news reports from Prague, the prime ministers agreed that Russia's actions toward Ukraine should be condemned, but disagreed about ways to help the neighboring country. While Poland and the Czech Republic support arms supplies to Ukraine, Hungary and Slovakia call for a peaceful resolution of the conflict as soon as possible.

Hungary earlier stated multiple times that it supports Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and is ready to continue economic and humanitarian assistance to the country. But it also signaled from the very beginning of the conflict that it would not supply weapons to Ukraine or allow weapons intended for Ukraine to transit Hungarian territory.