Russia’s transfer of two Ukrainian prisoners of war to Hungary without Kyiv’s knowledge has triggered a sharp diplomatic dispute and raised fresh questions about Budapest’s role in Kremlin influence operations ahead of Hungary’s April elections.
The incident unfolded on March 4, when Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó travelled to Moscow for talks with Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. The agenda covered energy supplies — Hungary sought guarantees on continued Russian oil and gas deliveries amid an ongoing dispute over the Druzhba pipeline — but also included a request to release two Ukrainian servicemen holding dual Hungarian-Ukrainian citizenship. Putin agreed on the spot, telling Szijjártó the men could board the minister’s plane back to Budapest. As Zaxid.net reported, Szijjártó had initially become involved after one of the prisoners recorded a video appeal addressed directly to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, while the mother of the second soldier contacted Hungarian authorities separately.
Szijjártó announced the release on Facebook the following morning, March 5, writing, “Almost minute by minute, 24 hours ago we set off from this very place — and we set off to return home with more people than we left with. As you can see, it worked, thank God.” Speaking to journalists at Budapest Airport, the minister said Putin had asked for nothing in return, describing the outcome as proof of Hungary’s “practical and rational foreign policy”, as Zaxid.net reported. Szijjártó also claimed that one of the men had been mobilised in Berehove despite holding a deferral and the other recruited into the Ukrainian Armed Forces despite documented mental health issues — claims that Ukraine has not confirmed and that Kyiv regards as part of a coordinated propaganda effort.
Kyiv: A violation of international law and a Russian provocation
Ukraine was not informed about the transfer through any diplomatic channel. The Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs learned of it through media reports and summoned Hungary’s chargé d’affaires on March 5 to demand an explanation, as European Pravda reported. Kyiv also formally requested consular access to the released soldiers and called on Budapest to guarantee they could “freely determine their future without external pressure or coercion”.
The Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War went further, issuing a statement that described the transfer as a gross violation of international humanitarian law and a deliberate Russian provocation. “Its goal is to once again attack the Geneva Conventions and international law, as well as to worsen relations between two European countries within the framework of Russia’s hybrid aggression against Europe,” the headquarters stated. The body added that supporting Moscow’s war crimes and manipulating the lives of Ukrainian prisoners of war “may be regarded by international courts as participation in unprovoked aggression against Ukraine”.
Ukraine does not recognise dual citizenship, meaning both men are considered Ukrainian citizens under Ukrainian law, with no other state holding jurisdiction over their cases without Kyiv’s consent.
Propaganda conditions: A former POW’s account
The transfer did not occur in isolation. Former Ukrainian prisoner of war Oleksii Chorpita, released from Russian captivity in 2025, told the Center for Strategic Communications (Spravdi) that in 2023, while held in a prison in Horlivka, he was offered early release under specific conditions. “I myself am from Zakarpattia. However, the condition for the exchange was that I had to record a video where I would speak negatively about the Ukrainian authorities and, at the same time, positively about Russia, the conditions of detention, and the prison regime. I refused to do it, and as a result I was not included in the exchange,” Chorpita said. He was eventually released through a standard prisoner exchange in 2025 and is currently undergoing treatment in Ukraine.
Chorpita also explained the broader dynamic: “In most cases, these videos are an element of Russian propaganda, created under pressure or coercion. That is why publishing such videos in foreign media effectively means spreading Russian propaganda and, in essence, supporting its aggression.”
His account aligns with what is now publicly known about the fate of one of the two released soldiers. According to Daily News Hungary, the man attended a meeting of the pro-peace DPK group on March 8 and, when a journalist asked what message he would send to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, replied with a single word: “Death.” The remark spread rapidly online and added to the controversy surrounding the circumstances of both men’s release.
A pattern, not an isolated incident
This is not the first time Ukrainian soldiers from Zakarpattia have been transferred to Hungary without Kyiv’s knowledge. In June 2023, eleven Ukrainian prisoners of war — all ethnic Hungarians from Transcarpathia — were handed over to Budapest through the Russian Orthodox Church, acting at the request of Hungarian Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjén. The transfer took place without Ukraine being informed. Ukrainian diplomats were initially denied access to the men, who were kept in conditions the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry described as isolation. Of the eleven, only five eventually returned to Ukraine, according to RBC-Ukraine. The fate of the remaining six has never been fully accounted for.
At the time, the European Commission demanded that Hungary explain what had happened. “We’ve heard that this situation was not coordinated with Ukraine. This should not have happened,” Peter Stano, spokesman for the EU’s foreign policy branch, told reporters in June 2023, as EUobserver reported. No comparable public statement from EU institutions followed the March 2026 transfer, with Brussels focused on the separate crisis over Hungary’s veto of a €90 billion loan package for Ukraine.
Electoral context and the bigger picture
The timing of the March 2026 transfer is difficult to separate from Hungarian domestic politics. Parliamentary elections are scheduled for April 12, and Orbán is trailing in the polls. Several analysts have noted that Budapest’s intensified engagement with Moscow — on both energy supplies and prisoner releases — serves a clear electoral purpose, allowing the government to present itself as the party capable of protecting ethnic Hungarians in Ukraine while positioning Hungary as a pragmatic alternative to what it calls the EU’s “war policy”.
Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry made the connection explicit, stating that Moscow and Budapest were using prisoners of war as “political PR ahead of the elections in Hungary”. The Coordination Headquarters echoed this framing, warning that manipulating prisoners’ lives for political purposes could constitute participation in aggression under international law.
The legal picture is complex. Under Article 12 of the Third Geneva Convention, transferring prisoners to a third state is technically permissible under certain conditions. However, analysts at the Lieber Institute at West Point have noted that the Russia-Hungary transfers raise serious questions: the consent of Ukraine, as the power on which the POWs depend, was not obtained; Russia, inheriting a Soviet-era reservation to Article 12, formally retains responsibility for the prisoners even after transfer; and Hungary, as a receiving state, would under the law of neutrality have been obliged to intern the men and accord them Geneva Convention protections rather than use them as props for political messaging.
The Szijjártó visit to Moscow also bundled the prisoner issue together with energy negotiations, with Hungary receiving guarantees on Russian gas and oil deliveries at unchanged prices on the same trip. That linkage — humanitarian framing tied to energy and electoral politics — is precisely what Kyiv describes as the operational logic of Russia’s hybrid campaign against European unity.
For now, Ukraine has not confirmed whether consular access to the two soldiers has been granted. Both men remain in Hungary.
