Hours after The Washington Post reported Tuesday that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban "helped sour Trump on Ukraine," the Orban government hit back hard at the Post's not-so-subtle conclusion it played a major role in convincing the President Donald Trump that Ukraine, rather than Russia, was responsible for foreign interference in the 2016 U.S. elections.
"This is how the fake news factory works – exploiting a biased narrative, ignoring facts to build on their anti-Trump, anti-Orban editorial stance," Orban's International Spokesman Zoltan Kovacs told reporters Tuesday afternoon.
Kovacs pointed out the Post article relied on "unnamed U.S. officials" who, in turn, rely on the "closed-door testimony of a career State Department official who 'cited the influence' Orban had on Trump."
"It's preposterous," Orban's top international spokesman said.
Kovacs recalled how the former Ukraine government of former Prime Minister Petro Poroshenko "pursued . . . anti-Hungarian policies" — to the point “we grew increasingly concerned for the well-being of the ethnic Hungarian community in Transcarpathia, western Ukraine."
He also cited a controversial citizenship law (later withdrawn) that would have an adverse effect on the Hungarian community in Ukraine, and added a Poroshenko-backed education law – enacted in April – directly discriminates against the Hungarian minority [in Ukraine] by limiting the community's right to education in its mother tongue.
Kovacs believes, election of President Volodimyr Zelenskiy — the key actor in Trump's alleged dealings in Ukraine — "has given us reason to be hopeful that the new leadership will take a different approach."
He noted, dialogue with Zelensk'y is "easier than it was with Poroshenko," that relations between "the two countries should return to the point where it was a few years ago," and Hungary, "prior to those recent strains, was among Ukraine's staunchest advocates in its quest for Euro-Atlantic integration."
Dismissing the Post's claim Orban "helped sour Trump on Ukraine," Kovacs declared, "the stability and security of Ukraine, our eastern neighbor, remains important to us and, yes, the safety and security of the 150,000 ethnic Hungarians living in the Transcarpathia region of Ukraine is a major concern for us."
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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