Reuters forgot to mention the second part of the argument. 150k+ Hungarian people do live in Ukraine and they could be attacked directly. All countries are allowed to assess the risks of involvement. Hungary's border with Ukraine is short anyway. Hungary participates in all sanctions, even though they hurt the country's economy a lot more than others. Some of the weapons are transported using Hungarian C17s by the way, so Hungary does actively participate according to the NATO and EU decisions.

> 150k+ Hungarian people do live in Ukraine and they could be attacked directly.

I am clearly not in a position to conduct risk assessments on anyone else's behalf, but I personally don't find this argument particularly compelling. It would require the invading army to specifically seek out those 0.3% of the population that are Hungarian to exact revenge on them.

Further, to avoid the impression that Hungarians are somehow a particularly large ethnic group in Ukraine, there are comparable numbers of Bulgarians, Romanians and Poles living there.

Also Reuters forgot to mention that Hungary is also a revisionist country as Russia is, and that it wants Transylvania, part of Slovakia and part of Serbia.

Why not full Slovakia, part of Austria (Burgenland), Slovenia and whole Croatia? All them were lost for Hungary after WWI. :D Anyway, Hungary is not a revisionist country, there are revisionist politicians who has never ever been part of the government since 1990. However, the little core of truth in your statement is that there has been tense relations between the Hungrian ethnic minorities and the majorities in neighboring countries, and even though e.g. both Romania and Hungary are EU members, there is still discrimination based on ethnicity/language/religion. (The most extreme neighboring country is Ukraine, where minority languages are effectively banned in schools and public insitutes. That's one thing why Ukraine cannot easily join EU.) The Serbian relation is getting better (cultural autonomy is provided for Hungarian minority). I must also note that the vast majority of people in Hungary goes along well with Slovaks, Romanians etc., and the Hungarian people living as minority also are quite fine with people the live together with, so these issues are mostly happening in politics. For example Slovakia banned singing the Hungarian anthem in 2019 https://newsnow.tasr.sk/policy/simon-ban-on-singing-of-hunga... I wonder what would be a good policy for such an unfriendly act.

Orbán literally is a staunch revanchist. Not sure how you can say Hungary is not revanchist when its powerful and noisy dictator constantly talks about Greater Hungary. Also not sure why Slovakia banning an anthem makes Hungarian revanchism any better.

> 150k+ Hungarian people do live in Ukraine

Sounds like a reason to support Ukraine.

Hardly surprising, considering who is Hungary PM.

https://balkaninsight.com/2022/02/16/orbans-cheerleading-for...

PM or proto dictator, seriously Orban controls media - as owner of them - and uses them to fight his opponents.

Number of controversial laws. Very close personal ties and meeting with Putin etc

I wouldn't be surprised if his people are funded by kremlin, it happened in czech republic, so its not unfeasible

Probably it will not be an issue for anyone. The Hungarian-Ukrainian border is short and not on a major route. And Europe has lots of practice avoiding Hungary lately.

The self-preservation argument in the OP seems like an excuse for not taking a hard line on Russia, but as long as they don’t obstruct European policy as a whole it’s mostly symbolic.

> And Europe has lots of practice avoiding Hungary lately.

Did some airspace thing happen recently in Hungary that I missed?

Nah, I meant more like avoiding them at dinner parties or diplomatic receptions.

Orbán looks up to Putin, he uses his methods against the opposition in Hungary and wishes having power like him, but of course Hungary is a tiny country, so his leeway is much more limited.

Yet, he wants to show Putin he's not against him, not even in this situation.

>we have to ensure the security of Hungary

I would have thought belonging to NATO would have been a deterrent to Russian attacks.

Ok, I had always assumed EU had some sort of interstate commerce regulations a la the U.S which would make this illegal. Although thinking about it I can see how that assumption doesn't work because different countries can keep things out that other countries don't regulate.

The EU doesn't have customs, which is why you think about US interstate commerce. But military movements are always different. Heck, some countries (Greece, iirc) don't even allow nuclear powered warships in their waters

Delivering lethal weapons to a war is hardly commerce.

if those weapons have been sold it is commerce, at any rate lots of things are called commerce that might stretch the definition so...

Might be a silly question but can it not just fly over Hungary? I don't think Hungary would really try to shoot down a plane carrying weapons for Ukraine, right?

Fact is that the weapons are partly transported by Hungarian C-17 planes. Hungary EU and NATO member and executes her duties, but if possible I think it is OK to try to reduce risks.

Hungary needs to provide air corridor in this case, which is something they are luckily reluctant to do.