On Monday, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó again vetoed sanctions against the highest representative of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, and refused to include other citizens of Russia in the sanctions list. With reference to the nepszava.hu server, the TASR correspondent in Budapest informs about it.
The head of Hungarian diplomacy also refused to include the Russian ambassador to the UN, members of the Russian Olympic Committee and two Russian football teams on the latest Brussels sanctions list regarding the entry ban and asset freeze. On June 2, 2022, the EU already decided to give in to Hungary’s pressure and did not include Patriarch Kirill, who is a close ally of the head of the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin, in the sixth package of sanctions against Russia.
Szijjártó stated on Monday at a press conference after the meeting of the Council of the European Union for Foreign Affairs that was the only one to veto the payment of approximately 6.5 billion euros from the so-called of the European Peace Instrument to member states that previously sent weapons to Ukraine. “Hungary will not assist this step in any way. Likewise, we will not support the transfer of the coordination unit to Kyiv as part of the EU training mission and nor the sending of Union advisers to Kyiv to coordinate the reform of the Ukrainian security sector,” added Szijjártó.
