Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, said the Hungarian government has refused to contribute 6.5 billion euros of compensation to European Union member states that have shipped arms to Ukraine.
Minister Szijjártó told a press conference after a meeting of the EU Foreign Affairs Council that Hungary raised the sole veto to the payment of approximately 6.5 billion euros from the European Peace Facility to member states that have supplied weapons to Ukraine, thereby withholding around 77 million euros of Hungarian money.
The foreign minister added that neither had Hungary supplied weapons nor contributed to the shipment of arms.
But if the other EU member states "want to do so voluntarily, Hungary will not stand in their way", he said.
Hungary will not give a nod to relocating an EU training mission coordination unit to Kyiv, or the deployment of EU advisors to Kyiv to coordinate the reform of the Ukrainian security sector, he added.
Minister Szijjártó said deploying people to Kyiv for the purposes of training, coordination and advice as part of an EU programme was "extremely risky" and risked escalation.
Regarding the 15th sanctions package against Russia, which allows Hungarian oil and gas company MOL to export products derived from Russian crude oil, the minister called the exemption "important". "As we managed to strip out the crazy ideas ... we did not veto it in the end," he said.
Commenting on the attempt to put Patriarch Kirill on the sanctions list, he said punishing church leaders "should be avoided at all costs", adding that all hopes for peace would be lost if lines of communication involving churches were cut.
Also, he said the EU had also tried to put Russia's UN ambassador on the list, "which is strange as the UN is the last port of call for political consultations..."
"We vetoed this and also signalled that we won't at all support the sanctioning of the Russian Olympic Committee. Mixing sports and politics ... is unacceptable."
Minister Szijjártó said a new reality had emerged in the war in Ukraine owing to the election win of Donald Trump and to Russian military victories on the battlefield. Far from being "Putinist propaganda," even his Ukrainian counterpart had confirmed the facts on the ground, he added.
He said that, "sadly", this new state of affairs had been ignored in Brussels as most EU member states were still pushing a "failed war strategy" and feeding the risk of escalation.
Regarding a Christmas truce, he said no one at today's council meeting had backed a ceasefire "that would save lives". Some at the meeting had even spoken against the proposal of a truce, he added.
Minister Szijjártó called his Polish counterpart's suggestion that Ukrainian men of military age living in the EU should have their social support withdrawn "harsh".