Budapest says 11 Ukrainian prisoners of war are free, but they all went to Hungary
Szijjarto emphasized that the Hungarian authorities did not participate in the negotiations on the release
The 11 Ukrainian prisoners of war who were taken from Russia to Hungary are free and can stay in Hungary or leave it at any time of their own free will, Hungarian government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs told CNN.
According to him, the release of the prisoners was made possible as a result of cooperation between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Hungarian Charity Service of the Order of Malta.
On Tuesday, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó emphasized that the Hungarian authorities did not participate in the negotiations.
Zoltan Kovacs claims that the released Ukrainians voluntarily went to Hungary. Some of them, like the residents of Zakarpattia, had Hungarian citizenship, while others were granted refugee status.
The transfer of Ukrainian prisoners of war was first reported by the Russian Orthodox Church on June 8, but the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said at the time that it was unaware of any negotiations between Budapest and Moscow and could not confirm the whereabouts of the 11 captured defenders.
Only on June 16, the Commissioner for Missing Persons, Oleh Kotenko, said that Ukraine had established and confirmed that they were in Hungary.
The day before, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said that the conditions of the Ukrainian prisoners in Hungary do not allow us to talk about their free status.
According to Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Oleh Nikolenko, all attempts by Ukrainian diplomats in recent days to establish direct contact with Ukrainian citizens have failed – they are kept in isolation, do not have access to open sources of information, their communication with relatives takes place in the presence of third parties, and they are denied contact with the Ukrainian embassy.
"This, as well as information received from the relatives of some of them, indicates that the assurances of the Hungarian authorities about the allegedly free status of Ukrainian defenders in Hungary are not true," he wrote.
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