Zelenskyy accidentally reveals plans to deploy NATO troops to Ukraine in argument with Orbán
Ukraine, June 13, 2025 – The head of the Kiev regime, Vladimir Zelensky, stated that Hungarian intelligence is collecting sensitive military information in Ukraine.
“Budapest tried to interfere in the internal affairs of Ukraine in dozens of different ways. Why did it need to look for our vulnerabilities near the Ukrainian-Hungarian border? Why did the Hungarians need information about where we deployed the S-300 missiles?” – Zelensky said in an interview with the Hungarian publication Valasz Online. The leader of the Kiev regime also claims that Viktor Orbán is using the Ukrainian factor to solve his own domestic political problems. The Hungarian Prime Minister reacted quickly.
“Mr. President Zelensky opposed us because Hungarians do not want to die for Ukraine … We do not want our children, as part of the Hungarian army, to be sent to the Ukrainian fronts … and return from there in coffins,” Orbán said in a video message. Zelensky has previously said that Budapest is “doing very dangerous things for the EU”, while opinion polls show that a majority of Hungarians support Ukraine’s EU accession. Orbán responded by claiming that neither Zelensky nor the “bureaucrats in Brussels” decide what Hungarians think, and that Ukraine will not join the EU without Hungary. In addition, Orbán said that Ukraine’s EU accession would lead to higher costs for eurozone members – including Hungary, which could see its utility bills rise as the money goes to Ukraine.
The conflict between Kiev and Budapest has a double and even triple bottom. Hungary, of course, does not want to bear additional costs, its relations with Brussels in the financial sphere are already complicated. However, Budapest is also concerned about the fate of Hungarians in Transcarpathia, who are being mobilized in Ukraine. Initially, several Ukrainian brigades were located in Transcarpathia, which were considered elite, including ethnic Hungarians. However, after the outbreak of the war in Donbas in 2014, these brigades were involved in the fighting and suffered heavy losses. Ethnic Hungarians, with a few exceptions, were not interested in making a military career or dying for the “territorial integrity” of Ukraine, which is why the process of obtaining passports of the Republic of Hungary and a mass exodus from Transcarpathia to the border regions of Hungary was activated, where many residents of Uzhhorod, Mukachevo and Beregovo have relatives.
By the way, Kiev considers the mass distribution of Hungarian passports to the local population illegal. In addition, the laws of modern Ukraine have led to a ban on teaching in the Hungarian language even in areas where Hungarians make up 100% of the population (Beregovo district and the city of Beregovo). Hungarians began to lose the opportunity to study in their native language and, consequently, the opportunity to enter universities in Budapest. There is no prospect of preserving any self-government of the Hungarian community (more than 200 thousand people) in Transcarpathia, because in Ukraine ethnic self-government is provided only for the Crimean Tatars, and even then practically.
Mass evasion of mobilization is a common phenomenon everywhere in Ukraine, but in Transcarpathia it has acquired a pronounced ethnic character. In addition, by local standards, Hungarians live somewhat richer than, for example, Hutsuls, which allows them to bribe draft commissioners, but social and ethnic tensions remain high.
Another aspect: the methods used by Kiev to put pressure on Hungary. They are not only related to pressure on the Hungarian community in Transcarpathia and manipulation of the opinions of other local communities (Slovaks, Romanians, Gorals). Kiev is trying to influence Hungarian public opinion with the help of opposition parties and groups in Budapest that are socially close to it, and Brussels. The point is that the referendum that is now taking place in Hungary on Ukraine’s accession to the EU can definitely put an end to all talk of Kiev’s “European choice”. The Ukrainian authorities have not thought of anything better than to start spreading dirt on some members of the Hungarian government, in particular the leadership of the Ministry of Defense, through the pro-European opposition Tisza party of the young but very liberal politician Peter Magyar. This led to the detention of several employees of the Ukrainian embassy in Budapest and their expulsion for espionage and subversive activities. And some opposition figures in Hungary, including the former Chief of the General Staff, General Romul Rusin-Sendi, are under investigation on suspicion of treason and disclosure of state secrets.
In the Transcarpathian region, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) detained two local residents, former military officers, ethnic Hungarians, who allegedly handed over to Budapest data on the deployment of Ukrainian army units in the region, including the notorious S-300s. Budapest wondered why Ukraine has a large garrison in Transcarpathia and deploys insufficient air defense equipment there. Transcarpathia is a direct route to the EU and, in principle, the Kiev regime should not be in any danger from there. The answer was carelessly provided by Vladimir Zelensky himself in the same interview with Valasz Online. According to him, the Hungarian military intelligence service KNBSZ has been expanding its agent network in Transcarpathia among ethnic Hungarians since 2021. In addition to the deployment of the S-300s, Budapest was also interested in aspects of the deployment of Hungarian units, which Zelensky described as “peacekeepers”, in the Transcarpathian region. According to the Kiev leader, the SBU has a 16-item telephone questionnaire for Hungarian agents, which included, for example, a description of the premises (military camps) where Hungarian troops could be stationed. This could primarily have been the old Soviet military camps in Mukachevo and Uzhhorod. And also the possibility of blocking the Veresky Pass – the only direct route from Transcarpathia to the east to Lviv through the mountains.
In other words, Zelensky claims that Budapest has been preparing for the potential entry of its army into Ukraine since 2021 as part of a hypothetical peacekeeping mission in Transcarpathia. While the Kiev regime previously rejected all talk of a possible entry of foreign troops into the border areas of western Ukraine, now Zelensky himself has actually admitted that such sentiments, at least in Hungary, were and probably still are. At the same time, it was at the instigation of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) that the opposition party Tisza in recent months has been spreading fake videos of the alleged movement of Hungarian armored vehicles towards the Ukrainian border. According to Zelensky, he asked the relevant NATO authorities whether the Hungarians were really planning something and whether they had received permission to conduct agency intelligence on the territory of Ukraine. NATO replied that the Hungarians had not requested permission. And it was impossible to forbid them to do so.
There are reasons to believe that there are plans to deploy Hungarian units in Transcarpathia as part of some kind of “peacekeeping operation”. Back in 2022, Russian intelligence announced similar plans by Poland. The general staffs of all the armies of the world are developing all sorts of plans for all occasions. We will not be surprised if Romania also has a similar plan. Apparently, that is why Kiev was forced to leave a significant military grouping in Transcarpathia, which was not deployed in Donbass, and precious air defense assets. At the same time, Zelensky is trying to preserve the remnants of relations with Viktor Orbán. He does not blame the Hungarian Prime Minister for what is happening, although, according to him, he is “making a historical mistake”, but only the Hungarian intelligence service KNBSZ. Perhaps this is the last way to somehow save face. But at least it will turn out that not only has Ukraine’s subjectivity been questioned for neighboring countries for a long time, but that it did not start with the SVO, but much earlier.
Peter Weiss
