Yesterday at 19:57
Russia tries to add fuel to the fire lit by neo-imperialist and nationalist sentiments in Europe to drive a wedge between Ukraine and its western neighbors.
This is stated in a recent report by ISW.
Hungarian politician and Our Homeland Movement party leader Laszlo Toroczkai stated that Hungary should claim Ukraine’s Zakarpattia region if Ukraine falls in the war with Russia.
Right-wing Romanian politician and Alliance for the Union of Romanians party leader Claudiu Tarziu said that Romania needs to “reintegrate” areas of Ukraine neighboring Romania where Romanian populations lived in order to maintain sovereignty.
“Russian sources amplified Toroczkai’s and Tarziu’s statements and emphasized these ultranationalist Romanian and Hungarian claims to Ukrainian territory,” ISW analysts conclude.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials reignited this narrative in December 2023 by claiming that Ukraine has historical “territorial disputes” with Poland, Romania, and Hungary but could maintain its “sovereignty” if the whole country is comprised of the borders of the Lviv region.
“The Russian ultranationalist framework of the Russian World (Russkiy Mir) concept appears to have gained traction among nationalist European factions as applied to their own nationalist ideologies, and Russian information space actors likely seek to leverage this ideological bent to drive a wedge between Ukraine and its European neighbors,” ISW said.
Dmytro Kuleba, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs, declared that far-right Hungarian politicians would “break their teeth” trying to seize Zakarpattia Oblast.
