Austria and Hungary agreed not to send weapons to Ukraine.
This was stated by Austrian Defense Minister Claudia Tanner and her Hungarian counterpart Christoph Salai-Bobrovnytskyi at a meeting in Budapest, EurActiv cites.
The position of Austria and Hungary regarding the war in Ukraine is as follows — both countries are not sending weapons "to prevent further escalation", Tanner and Salai-Bobrovnytskyi said during a joint press conference.
Both stated they would be on the side of peace and would continue to provide humanitarian aid to war refugees.
According to Claudia Tanner, the biggest danger is "that the war could spread to Europe", both from conventional war and from interactions with hybrid warfare and increased migration in general.
- In July 2022, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Hungary Péter Szijártó stated that Hungary refused to participate in the supply of Western weapons to Ukraine in order not to expose Hungarians living in Transcarpathia to the danger of Russian shelling.
- In January, Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg urged "not to bend the stick" regarding Russia and restrictions against it. In April 2022, Shallenberg opposed Ukraineʼs accession to the EU.