Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán accused Poland’s government of trying to wreck historic ties after Poland’s foreign minister voiced hope Ukrainians would destroy a Russian oil pipeline to Hungary.
A handout photo issued by the Hungarian Prime Minister’s General Department of Communication shows Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban delivering a speech during a ceremony marking the 69th anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian revolution and war of independence against communist rule and the Soviet Union, in front of the Parliament building at KossuPhoto: EPA/AKOS KAISER
Orbán wrote on Facebook on Wednesday that Warsaw, gripped by a “war psychosis,” was supporting the sabotage of the Druzhba (“Friendship”) pipeline, comparing it to the Nord Stream blasts.
Blowing up the line would impose heavy financial losses on Hungarian families, he said, adding that Budapest still backed friendship between the two nations.
Balázs Orbán, the prime minister’s political chief of staff, called the Polish minister’s post “the darkest dimension of war hysteria,” saying Poland and Hungary are allied countries bound by historic ties.
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, posting on X, said he was proud a Polish court had ruled that sabotaging an invader was not a crime.
He added he hoped Ukraine’s “brave compatriot,” Major “Magyar,” would succeed in destroying the oil pipeline that fuels President Vladimir Putin’s war machine, and that Hungary could instead receive oil via Croatia.
Sikorski’s reference was to Major Robert Brovdi, known as “Magyar,” the commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces and an ethnic Hungarian.
Hungary’s foreign ministry has barred Brovdi from entering the country and traveling in the Schengen area following Ukrainian attacks on the Druzhba route, which delivers Russian crude to Hungary.
The online exchange followed a separate spat with Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto. Asked on Tuesday about a planned Trump-Putin meeting in Budapest and speculation that Vladimir Putin’s plane might fly over Poland, Sikorski said Poland could not guarantee an independent court would not order the government to detain such an aircraft to bring a suspect to The Hague.
Szijjarto replied on X by questioning whether Sikorski meant the same “independent court” that, at the instruction of Prime Minister Donald Tusk, had refused to extradite a “terrorist who blew up Nord Stream 2.”
He referred to a Warsaw court’s decision last week to deny Germany’s request to extradite Ukrainian citizen Volodymyr Zhuravlov and to order his immediate release.
Zhuravlov had been sought under a European Arrest Warrant issued by Germany’s Federal Court of Justice in connection with suspected sabotage and damage to the Nord Stream pipeline after his September arrest in Poland.
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Source: PAP, RMF24