Local Mayor Rebuffs Claims on Hungarian Rights in Ukraine by Incoming Hungarian PM

The mayor of Berehove, a border city near Hungary, has rejected claims made by soon-to-be Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Magyar that the Hungarian population has been oppressed. Make us preferred on Google Share Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn Bluesky Email Copy Copied Zoltan Babjak, mayor of Berehove on Feb. 28, 2014 (Photo by ATTILA KISBENEDEK / AFP) Hungary’s Prime Minister-elect Peter Magyar on on April 15, 2026. (Photo by Attila KISBENEDEK / AFP) Content Share Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn Bluesky Email Copy Copied Flip Make us preferred on Google The mayor of a Hungarian-dominant city in Ukraine has rejected claims of systematic oppression against the Hungarian population made by the incoming Hungarian prime minister, Peter Magyar, on Wednesday, April 29. Zoltán Babják, the mayor of Berehove, said there is “no question of any oppression of the rights of the national community” in response to Magyar’s earlier claims, in which Magyar accused Kyiv of imposing “restrictions” in public life and culture on the Hungarian-speaking population. Follow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official . “Systematic work and dialogue are ongoing at all levels regarding individual issues of the Hungarian community’s life that need to be resolved,” Babják wrote on Facebook after his meeting with Magyar. “President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky personally cares about these issues, as evidenced by his repeated meetings with the community,” he added. Berehove, in Ukraine’s Transcarpathia region near the Hungarian border, is the proposed site of a summer meeting with Zelensky put forward by Magyar. Magyar, who won the recent elections in a landslide victory , said he received Babják in his office on Wednesday. After their meeting, Magyar issued a Facebook update accusing Ukraine of having lackluster policies on securing rights for the local Hungarian population and proposed a meeting with Zelensky in Berehove to address the issues. “The time has come for Ukraine to eliminate the legal restrictions that have existed for more than a decade and for the Hungarians in Transcarpathia to regain all their cultural, linguistic, administrative and higher education rights and to become equal, respected citizens of Ukraine again,” Magyar wrote. Other Topics of Interest Largest Cigarette Distributor Tedis Ukraine Enters Bankruptcy Proceedings Debt caused disastrous consequences to a once-dominant tobacco distributor. “This could also help ensure that as many Hungarians in Transcarpathia as possible can return to their homeland after the war is over,” he added. Magyar hailed the progress made in education, which was negotiated by the government under outgoing Prime Minister Viktor Orban, but argued it was insufficient. “The concessions announced by the Ukrainian government in the field of education in 2025 are progressive, but they are not enough,” he wrote. “Higher education in Ukraine remains monolingual, the school-leaving exams are in Ukrainian, and there have been no substantive changes in other official areas of language use,” he added, arguing that Ukraine’s law on having Ukrainian as the sole state language has created hurdles for local Hungarians. Magyar also argued that the current system limits the Hungarian-speaking population’s access to administrative services. After the meeting, Babják said he told Magyar that “the Hungarian community, along with other national communities, receives support from the state at all levels.” Babják tacitly rebuffed Magyar’s claims by saying that work is ongoing to advance the rights of the local Hungarian-speaking population and by listing examples in fields such as education and administrative access. “Large resources have been invested in the communities where Hungarians live in Transcarpathia to rebuild infrastructure. In particular, a new building of the Berehove district hospital, new roads, border crossing points, and much more have been built,” Babják wrote. “Education and culture are financed from state and local budgets, which makes it possible to provide all educational services stipulated by the Law, including for the Hungarian national community,” he continued, adding that the Hungarian population also holds government positions on both state and local levels. Babják then said Ukraine has made “important decisions at the legislative level” to address the issues before thanking both Magyar and Zelensky for their help. Hungary has long accused Ukraine of restricting the rights of Hungarians within the country, a narrative amplified by the outgoing, pro-Kremlin Orban administration. The argument centered on whether locals can speak Hungarian in different facets of daily life. Berehove declared Hungarian a regional language in 2012. But in 2017, Hungary also requested that Ukraine amend its education laws to guarantee that Hungarian speakers can study in Hungarian, in response to Kyiv’s decision at the time to mandate that all teaching at schools be in the official language, which is Ukrainian. Budapest and Kyiv also clashed on a regular basis, at times over Hungarian rights, and others over the transit of Russian oil. But the Orban administration’s claims about Hungarian rights in Ukraine also sparked a spy scandal in May 2025, in which Kyiv accused Budapest of setting up a spy ring in western Ukraine to gauge local sentiment toward a potential Hungarian invasion. Hungary denied the reports, with both countries expelling each other’s diplomats . An op-ed published by Kyiv Post at the time examined the rights and living conditions of ethnic minority groups in Ukraine’s Transcarpathian region. While Magyar has been hailed as a potential turning point in Budapest’s approach toward Kyiv, with him having vowed to rid Budapest of Russian influence, observers have also suggested that his right-leaning policies are unlikely to bring about substantial changes, as seen in the latest examples. After his election victory, Magyar voiced support for Kyiv’s defense against the Russian invasion but did not rule out continuing to purchase Russian oil. He also rejected Ukraine’s quick accession to the EU. Leo Chiu is a journalist and editor based in Eastern Europe since 2015. He has witnessed two presidential elections in Belarus and traveled widely to conflict zones and contested regions, producing reporting that bridges the gap between major developments and local realities.