BUDAPEST, March 2 (Reuters) – Hungary summoned Kyiv’s ambassador on Monday to protest at what the Budapest government said was the conscription of two ethnic Hungarians who should not have been called up for the war in neighbouring Ukraine.
The announcement adds to tensions between Budapest and Kyiv as Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government has made Russia’s war on Ukraine a key topic in his campaign for the April 12 parliamentary election.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto alleged that two Ukrainian citizens who were ethnic Hungarians had been wrongly conscripted.
Ethnic Hungarians are not automatically exempt from military service in Ukraine but Szijjarto said one of the men had a waiver from military duty while the other was suffering from mental issues. Reuters could not independently verify the assertions.
In a video posted on his Facebook page on Monday, he said the ambassador had been called to hear a “protest against the ongoing violent conscriptions and the ongoing open street-level manhunt”.
Ukraine’s foreign ministry and Ukraine’s embassy in Hungary did not reply to emailed requests for comment.
Facing an unusually strong challenger, Orban has cast the election as a stark choice of “war or peace”, saying his opponents would drag Hungary into the war in Ukraine.
Unlike most other European Union members, Orban’s Hungary maintains cordial ties with Moscow and refuses to send weapons to Ukraine, and says Kyiv can never join the EU.
The halt of oil flows on the Druzhba pipeline transporting Russian crude oil to Hungary and Slovakia through Ukraine has also added to tensions.
Kyiv says a Russian attack damaged the pipeline, while Orban and Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico accuse it of keeping the pipeline shut for political reasons.
(Reporting by Anita Komuves; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
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