BUDAPEST, August 6. /TASS/. There is no place in the European Union for Ukraine because it is not a civilized country, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said, referring to Kiev’s refusal to investigate the case of ethnic Hungarian Jozsef Sebestyen, killed while being forcibly conscripted in Ukraine’s Transcarpathia Region.
According to the diplomat, if something like that happened "in a normal, civilized country," those responsible would have long been punished. But what about Ukraine? "Forced mobilization is a state policy there. There is no place for such a country in the European Union; it is not a civilized country," Szijjarto pointed out in The Fighters’ Hour program on YouTube.
The Ukrainian authorities "have in fact admitted that the forceful mobilization campaign, which involves beatings, is a routine practice, approved, paid-for and managed by the government," the Hungarian foreign minister said.
In his view, the European Union leadership also remains silent on the killing of the 45-year-old resident of the town of Beregovo in the Transcarpathia Region, who held both Ukrainian and Hungarian passports. "It means Brussels acknowledges that it condones it, approves it and all this is happening with its tacit approval and silent backing," Szijjarto added.
Reports from Kiev say that Ukraine’s State Bureau of Investigation refused to look into Sebestyen’s case, citing a lack of evidence. The man’s family wrote on social media that in mid-June, Ukrainian security officers had captured him on the street in Beregovo, forcibly took him to a conscription office and beat him up for not being willing to go to the front. On July 6, he died of injuries in the hospital.
Hungary imposed sanctions on three Ukrainian military commanders responsible for human rights violations during the forced mobilization campaign and officially called on the EU to do the same. Budapest pointed out to Brussels that evidence of the Ukrainian authorities’ brutal forced conscription was available in Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Michael O'Flaherty’s recent report on the situation in Ukraine.