László Toroczkai is a Hungarian politician, journalist, chief of the Our Homeland Movement political party, and ex-mayor of Ásotthalom. He is also a constituent of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. The Hungarian far-right party Our Homeland declared a controversial and seemed to be pro-Russian claim to Ukraine’s Zakarpattia Oblast region if Ukraine fails the war, party leader Laszlo Toroczkai stated on Jan. 27.
Zakarpattia Oblast, connecting Slovakia and Hungary to the west, and Romania to the south, has a substantial population of ethnic Hungarians. The problem of minority rights has created conflict between Hungary and Ukraine, particularly centred on Ukrainian state linguistic policies. The language law that has long been a basis of strife between Hungary and Ukraine was created in 2017 and requires at least 70% of education above the fifth stage to be conducted in Ukraine.
Our Homeland has called for improved autonomy for ethnic Hungarians in Ukraine and in other neighbouring nations with a Hungarian diaspora. The party, which currently carries six seats out of a total of 199 in Hungary’s parliament, has been charged for its nativist views and rhetoric. Toroczkai has made some controversial comments, including some deemed to be antisemitic, anti-Roma, and anti-immigrant.
Dora Duro, an associate of Our Homeland in the Hungarian parliament, also stated in an interview with the Russian state-controlled media platform Izvestia in April 2023 that Ukraine would require Russia’s permission to join NATO. Toroczkai’s statements about the proposed plan to claim Ukrainian territory came at a party meeting in Budapest, which was also accompanied by representatives of other far-right parties from Europe, including Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the Dutch Forum for Democracy.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and other senior Russian officials reignited this narrative in December 2023 by declaring that Ukraine has historical “territorial disputes” with Poland, Romania, and Hungary but could preserve its “sovereignty” if the whole nation is comprised of the borders of the Lviv region.
The Russian ultranationalist framework of the Russian World (Russkiy Mir) concept seems to have gained traction among nationalist European factions as applied to their nationalist ideologies, and Russian information space actors likely seek to leverage this ideological bent to drive a wedge between Ukraine and its European neighbours.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba earlier condemned the statement by far-right Hungarian politicians regarding territorial claims to Ukraine’s Zakarpattia parts in the event of a Ukrainian defeat in the war.
