Orban on Ukraine: Country where people are killed during forced mobilization cannot be in EU

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is confident that a country where people are beaten to death during forced mobilization cannot join the European Union. The politician said this while commenting on the death of a Hungarian from Zakarpattia in Ukraine, RIA Novosti reports.

The Magyar Nemzet newspaper reported on Thursday, citing relatives, that 45-year-old Jozsef Sebestyen died in hospital three weeks after military enlistment office officers in Ukraine grabbed him on the street, pushed him into a minibus, took him to a recruiting station, and beat him with metal bars. The deceased's sister posted footage of Ukrainian soldiers abusing her brother. The Hungarian Foreign Ministry summoned the Ukrainian ambassador and demanded an explanation.

"A country in which a person or people are beaten to death as a result of forced conscription - because, of course, forced conscription affects not only Hungarians but everyone else - cannot be a member of the European Union," Orban told Radio Kossuth.

The host asked Orban to comment on the statement of the Ukrainian Ground Forces that Sebestyen was allegedly called up to the Armed Forces of Ukraine on legal grounds and that the military registration and enlistment office staff did not use cruel treatment against him.

"This does not satisfy us at all, because we cannot hide our heads in the sand, we know for sure that forced mobilization is taking place in Ukraine," the Hungarian Prime Minister replied.

According to him, the protracted conflict affects Hungary, since it is a neighboring country to Ukraine, but it cannot be resolved on the battlefield, only as a result of a diplomatic settlement.

Earlier, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said that representatives of the Ukrainian authorities have not given a clear response to accusations of oppressing Transcarpathian Hungarians for years and now "very many" of them are being mobilized into the Ukrainian troops, sometimes "in very crude ways." According to him, forced mobilization into the Ukrainian army, including ethnic Hungarians, violates human rights, and the silence of human rights organizations about forced mobilization in Ukraine and the detention of draft dodgers at the border is shameful.

Videos of forced mobilization in the Armed Forces of Ukraine are widely distributed on the Internet, in which representatives of Ukrainian military commissariats take men away in minibuses, often beating the detainees and using force against them.

The law on strengthening mobilization in Ukraine came into force on May 18, 2024. The document required all conscripts to update their data at the military registration and enlistment office. To do this, you need to come to the military registration and enlistment office in person or register in the "conscript's electronic account". The summons will be considered delivered even if the conscript has not seen it in person: the date of "delivery" of the summons will be considered the date on which a stamp was placed in the document indicating the impossibility of personal delivery. The law stipulates that conscripts must always carry their military ID with them and present it at the first request of military registration and enlistment office employees or the police. At that, the demobilization period is not specified in the document.