BUDAPEST, July 15. /TASS/. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said EU leaders are unwilling to notice the inhuman efforts of the Ukrainian authorities during the country’s compulsory conscription.

He made the statement at a meeting with his EU counterparts, as he raised the issue of Jozsef Szebestien, a 45 years old ethnic Hungarian holding dual citizenship, who was killed as he didn’t want to end up at the battlefield.

"Shocking how Brussels and European leaders turn a blind eye to Ukraine’s inhuman forced conscription. Where are the NGOs, the human rights activists, the so-called independent media? A Hungarian man was beaten to death for refusing to go to war. Unacceptable and must be addressed," Szijjarto wrote on X.

Earlier, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban demanded that the EU condemn the forced conscription in Ukraine and impose sanctions for human rights violations against the Ukrainian leaders responsible for the murder of the Hungarian. The prime minister also said that a country "where people are beaten to death as a result of forced conscription can’t be an EU member."

Forced conscription

According to Hungarian authorities, Jozsef Szebestien, a resident of the town of Beregovo in Ukraine’s Transcarpathian region, was seized on the street by Ukrainian security personnel in mid-June, forcibly taken to a conscription office and severely beaten there because he did not want to be sent to the battlefield. On July 6, he died of his injuries in hospital, and three days later he was buried in a cemetery in his hometown. The circumstances of the death of the Hungarian were released in social media by his relatives.

Ukrainian ambassador to Budapest Fyodor Shandor was summoned to the Hungarian Foreign Ministry on July 10, where it was demanded that he give explanations in connection with Szebestien’s murder.

Ukraine rejected all accusations. According to reports from Kiev, the Ukrainian Ground Forces Command stated that Szebestien died on July 6 "as a result of pulmonary embolism, without any external signs of physical violence."