Hungary will summon Russia's ambassador on 14 May over the previous day's drone strikes on Zakarpattia Oblast, Prime Minister Péter Magyar announced after the first meeting of his new government on 13 May.
This is the first time a Hungarian government has called in Russia's envoy over an attack on Zakarpattia—the Ukrainian region bordering Hungary. Under Viktor Orbán's foreign minister Péter Szijjártó, the previous government stayed silent through earlier Russian strikes near the Hungarian border, drawing repeated criticism from independent Hungarian outlets.
Russian drones hit five targets across the oblast. They damaged a transformer and a railway station in Svaliava and an industrial facility in Uzhhorod, Foreign Minister Anita Orbán reported. The ambassador is due at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on 14 May.
Russia is hitting Ukraine’s Zakarpattia Oblast, bordering Hungary with drones, for first time. Expert says this is linked to end of Orbán’s era
"The Hungarian government strongly condemns the Russian attack on Zakarpattia Oblast," Magyar said.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha thanked Anita Orbán for the speed of her condemnation.
Magyar identified Russia as the aggressor throughout his campaign, breaking with Orbán's pro-Kremlin rhetoric. He traveled to Kyiv in July 2024 to deliver humanitarian aid after Russia struck the Okhmatdyt children's hospital, and before April's election he sent an open letter to Moscow's ambassador in Budapest invoking Hungary's 1956 uprising against Soviet rule, after his party accused Russian operatives of interfering in the campaign. He has pledged to end Hungary's veto on the EU's €90 billion Ukraine aid package, while ruling out Hungarian weapons transfers and opposing Kyiv's fast-tracked EU accession.
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Ukrainian analysts linked the timing of Russia's Zakarpattia strikes to the end of Orbán's era—a message from Moscow that the protection no longer applies. Magyar answered with his first foreign-policy act in office. The ambassador he is summoning is the same one he wrote to in opposition.
The Zakarpattia oblast holds Ukraine's largest ethnic Hungarian community—roughly 150,000 people whose defense Orbán made central to Hungarian foreign policy for sixteen years. At 11:30 on Thursday, the Russian ambassador will hear what Magyar's government has to say about them.
