The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War (POWs) and other Ukrainian authorities involved continue to take active measures to return home 11 Ukrainian POWs, whom Hungary, without the knowledge of the Ukrainian government or international human rights organizations, took out of Russia, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Oleh Nikolenko said.

“All attempts by Ukrainian diplomats in recent days to establish direct contact with Ukrainian citizens have not been successful. This, as well as information received from relatives of some of them, indicates that the assurances of the Hungarian authorities about the allegedly free status of Ukrainian defenders in Hungary do not correspond to reality. In fact, they are kept in isolation, do not have access to open sources of information, their communication with relatives takes place in the presence of third parties, they are denied contact with the Embassy of Ukraine,” Nikolenko wrote on Facebook.

The Foreign Ministry stressed that the attempts of the Ukrainian side to establish a constructive dialogue with the Hungarian authorities are ignored by official diplomatic channels.

“Such actions of Budapest call into question the declared humanitarian motives for the removal of Ukrainians to Hungary. In addition, they can be qualified as a violation of the provisions of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms,” the spokesperson said.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine once again appealed to the Hungarian side with a demand to immediately admit the Ukrainian consul to the Ukrainian prisoners of war so that he could assess their physical and psychological condition, tell them about their rights, and also provide urgent consular assistance.

“Ukraine is waiting for the return of our defenders and is ready to provide them with maximum assistance in reuniting with their relatives and provide the necessary rehabilitation,” the ministry said.

On June 16, Oleh Kotenko, the Commissioner for Missing Persons under Special Circumstances, said that the whereabouts of 11 Ukrainian captured defenders held in Hungary, who had previously been prisoners of war in the Russian Federation, had been established.

On June 9, spokesperson of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry Oleh Nikolenko said that the Hungarian charge d'affaires had been invited to the Foreign Ministry for a substantive conversation about the transfer of 11 Ukrainian prisoners of war by Russia to Hungary.

According to him, from the public statements of the Deputy Prime Minister of Hungary, Ukraine learned that Russia had transferred 11 Ukrainians of Hungarian origin to Budapest.