Defense Minister Kristóf Szalay-Bobrovniczky said on Tuesday that French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent remark not ruling out the option of sending Western troops to Ukraine gives cause for concern, emphasizing Hungary’s rejection of sending weapons to the neighboring country.
“We insist on our position urging a ceasefire and call on the warring sides to start peace talks,” the minister told a conference of defense force, military and air attaches in Budapest. “The war in Ukraine has entered into its most dangerous phase as the aggressor seems to be gaining ground, possibly pushing Western decision-makers into taking action,” the minister said. The time of peace in Europe has come to an end, two European, Christian nations have been fighting a terrible, bloody war for two years.” The “massacre” had yielded no military results, nor was one to be hoped for in the near future, he said. Meanwhile, Csaba Dömötör, a state secretary at the cabinet office, said in a video on Facebook that “the moment has come when the president of France is suggesting surprisingly openly that European troops might be sent to the battlefield in Ukraine… I think we are very close to a proposal requesting Ukraine’s allies for troops to cross the border into Ukraine”. He cited the Hungarian prime minister envisioning this scenario in an interview last year. Dömötör concluded the video by reiterating the Hungarian government's stance that “We support peace talks and peace”.