Viktor Orban claims that the most massive mobilization in Ukraine is of soldiers who are ethnic Hungarians. And together with the Kremlin, he appears as a savior of prisoners of war. What is true and what is propaganda? DW checked on the spot.
Whenever Peter Filipovich has time, he reads news from Hungary, even though he is currently on the front line in Ukraine. In recent weeks, he has mainly been informing himself about Viktor Orban's election campaign, because it affects his homeland Ukraine to the greatest extent - the country that he chose to defend from Russian aggression as an ethnic Hungarian from the Transcarpathian region. Hungarian Prime Minister Orban has focused much of his campaign on accusations against the Ukrainian government.
Peter is from the town of Chop, which is located on the border between Ukraine and Hungary. He is currently the commander of a military unit in eastern Ukraine. He says his case is far from exceptional for ethnic Hungarians in Ukraine.
Conscripted soldiers?
Ukrainian Hungarians have long been the focus of public discussion ahead of the election. According to unofficial information, there are about 80,000 ethnic Hungarians living in Ukraine, almost all of them in the Transcarpathian region. The Hungarian minority is at the center of Viktor Orban's campaigns, even though they make up just 0.23% of Ukraine's population. Orban and his government have argued for years that Hungarians in Ukraine are being repressed. And now they are also claiming that they are being forcibly sent to the front.
The Hungarian prime minister and his campaign have been using the term "forced mobilization", which is rejected by independent observers in Hungary, since mobilization during martial law is never voluntary. The Ukrainian service responsible for mobilization, the TCC, is particularly unpopular because it sometimes takes able-bodied men directly off the streets to mobilize them, and sometimes even by force. Such videos regularly appear on social media. Some are real, but many are fake. Hungarian media outlets affiliated with the government often spread the fake ones, which are mostly from Russia.
In a recent report, Ukrainian Ombudsman Dmytro Lubynets criticized the work of the TCC in Uzhgorod, the regional capital of the Transcarpathian region. According to Lubinets, the entire mobilization system must be reformed, because many healthy Ukrainian men stay home and do not go out for fear of being sent to the front. Laszlo Zubanych, chairman of the Democratic Council of Hungarians in Ukraine, told DW that it is an open secret that men are hiding to avoid being mobilized.
Are there really many ethnic Hungarians at the front in Ukraine?
The Ukrainian army does not keep statistics on the ethnicity of its soldiers. According to estimates by Hungarian politicians from Transcarpathia, some of whom are close to Orbán, about 400 to 500 ethnic Hungarians are fighting in the war. For comparison, ethnic Ukrainians in the army are about 850,000.
The Transcarpathian CC office refused to provide official information, but an official commented unofficially that the number of ethnic Hungarians mobilized was well below average. One of the most popular and successful commanders in the Ukrainian army - Robert Brovdy, who leads the Ukrainian army's drones, is of Hungarian origin and is a native of Transcarpathia. Hungary banned him from entering the country in August 2025 because he was accused of attacks on the "Druzhba" pipeline.
Why are prisoners of war sent from Russia to Hungary?
Prisoners of war from the Ukrainian army who are of Hungarian origin are sent directly to Hungary according to an agreement between Budapest and Moscow. Hungarian television even showed a Russian propaganda video in which one of the prisoners of war claims that the Ukrainian army abandoned him and thanks his Russian "liberators". These people are being sent to Hungary without the knowledge of the Ukrainian authorities - this is contrary to international law. Reports by the UN and a number of other human rights organizations show that Ukrainian prisoners of war in Russia are subject to harassment. That is why actions like these - Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó returning such people to Ukraine on his state plane after a visit to Russia - are convenient for Russian propaganda.
Ukrainian activist Vlasta Repasi from Uzhhorod has been caring for released prisoners of war for years. She says these people should not be accused of being participants in Russian propaganda videos, because this was probably done under pressure. Oleksiy Chorpita, 23, for example, was offered to be sent to Hungary on one condition - to slander the Ukrainian army and call on Kiev to lay down its arms. He refused, which is why he remained in a Russian prison for another year and a half, where he was subjected to torture.
Peter Filipovich says he went to the front voluntarily - in fact, he was there as early as 2014, when Russia launched its first offensive in eastern Ukraine. The ethnic Hungarian says his dream is to return to Chop when the war is over. He has no intention of leaving Ukraine and living in Orban's Hungary. "I don't want a country like Russia or people like the Russian occupiers to be my neighbors. That's why I'm on the front, that's why I'm fighting," he says.