A new provocation outrages the Hungarian community in TranscarpathiaContinue reading
Many ethnic Hungarians are fighting in the Transcarpathian Special Battalion in the Donbass, including a lecturer from the University of Uzhhorod (Ungvár).
In the second half of September, during the Russian-Ukrainian war, the 68th Transcarpathian Special Battalion took part in the famous Operation Kharkov, during which territories three times the size of Luxembourg were liberated from the Russian invaders. The fighters were given the task of liberating several villages, in particular the village of Ambarne near the Ukrainian-Russian border, which was the first to be entered by ethnic Hungarians, with the call names Laci, Áron, Bars. The Hungarians were the first soldiers of the Ukrainian armed forces to liberate this village from the enemy.
One of the soldiers of the battalion, Sándor Fedir, posted his photos from the village on Facebook:
Sándor Fedir is a well-known figure not only in Transcarpathia, but also in Hungary. He is a professor and tourism expert at the National University of Ungwar (Ushhorod) who volunteered in the first days of the war. The family man, who did not even receive a basic military service, attracted attention with his online lectures from the trenches of Donbass.
In an interview with the Hungarian-language Transcarpathian daily, Fedir said, “I am fighting not only for Ukraine’s independence and sovereignty, but also for the next generation to live in a civilized world.”
His unit often exchanges important information on the radio in Hungarian, few Russians understand. Fedir also sees a parallel between the 1956 Hungarian struggle for freedom and the current war in his homeland. In 1956 the walls of the houses in Budapest were inscribed ‘Russki home’ and not ‘Russians home’. We are fighting the same Russian empire as the Hungarians did more than half a century ago, only now it has a different name, he wrote.
The Transcarpathian daily Kárpáti Igaz Szó knows of nine fallen soldiers of Hungarian descent (as of Oct. 19, 2022), while Viktor Orbán spoke of 200 killed Hungarian recruits from the Ukrainian army last Tuesday in Berlin. About ten percent of the inhabitants of Transcarpathia are of Hungarian descent, but there is a downward trend. Optimistic estimates put their number at about 130,000; realistic ones assume 100,000 Hungarians have remained in the multilingual region. Numerous young men of draft age are leaving the country because they do not see this war as theirs.
Featured Photo: Facebook Sándor Fedir
Article originally published on our sister-site, Ungarn Heute