Ukraine War Day #339: On Mystical Birds And The Carpathian Problem, Part II

Dear Readers:

Here is my translation of Part 2 of that Rybar story. Where we left off: We saw that a Ukrainian Nationalist by the name of Viktor Baloga has built a criminal empire around the Hungarian city of Mukachevo in the Transcarpathian region. As this region falls within the administrative boundaries of the Ukrainian state, the local people have suffered the effects of “Ukrainization” and oppression of their rights, as an ethnic minority. After the war started, things became much worse for them. Locals claim there is even a kind of “genocide” going on, as army recruiters hustle away every male they can find, as cannon fodder for the front lines. [yalensis: If all the young Hungarian males are killed at the front, then the Hungarian girls may not be able to find husbands from within their own ethnic community.]

Rybar: In recent years Baloga simply threw off the mask and began to engage in open and unconcealed oppression of the Hungarian community. Many Hungarians in these parts have dual citizenship: Ukraine and Hungary. In 2018 Baloga called for those with dual citizenship to leave Ukraine, and said their homes should be confiscated and turned over to ethnic Ukrainians. [yalensis: This is the typical Ukrainian way of carrying out ethnic cleansing, since the time of Stepan Bandera; except that Bandera simply butchered people and then took their homes.]

In addition, Baloga called for closing down the Hungarian enclave in Beregovo, where “Ukrainians have started to feel themselves as the minority.” [yalensis: Poor things! I feel their pain. In my own neighborhood, everybody chatters away in Spanish and I can’t understand a word, time to send them all packing back to Puerto Rico!]

Beregovo is a place beloved by the Hungarian government itself, which invests millions of Euros to cultivate Hungarian social and educational centers. Baloga wanted to clean out these institutions and replace them with Ukrainian equivalents. The Mayor of Beregovo, Zoltan Babyak countered that, without Hungarian economic assistance this area simply would not be able to survive. Given that the Transcarpathian region has always been one of the poorest and crime-infested regions of the Ukrainian conglomeration. Many ethnic Hungarians have already fled this region to emigrate to Hungary. [yalensis: The Hungarian government would prefer to keep these people living where they are, just not being oppressed, hence their generous economic investment in this region.]

As mentioned, the Ukrainian crackdown on Hungarians started long before the war. The Ukrainian Nationalists were always worried about possible Separatist sentiments in this region. [yalensis: And they were not completely wrong, there is some Separatist sentiment. But maybe the Ukrainians could have tried to kill them with kindness. Just a thought.]

Alexei Petrov

For example, in 2020 police conducted well-publicized raids of Hungarian political and cultural organizations. Zelensky’s political party Servant of the People is represented in this region by a man named Alexei Petrov. [According to his wiki, he is a Major-General in SBU counter-intel.] When engaging in traditional politics, Petrov had approached the leader of the “Hungarian Party”, Vasily Brenzovich, with an offer to form a coalition. But Brenzovich refused. This led to the raids and searches; with Brenzovich himself accused of treason, after the cops found a map of “Greater Hungary” in his office. Surprisingly, the criminal Don, Viktor Baloga, stood up for the Hungarians on this occasion, and called the raids a “provocation”.

However, in December 2022 Baloga changed his tune and called on the SBU to “verify” the local Hungarian political organizations, accusing them of following the “Orbán line”, referring to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. [yalensis: Who recently stopped even trying to conceal his utter contempt for Ukrainian Nationalists.]

As Baloga upped his rhetoric, he called local pro-Hungarian politicians such as Brenzovich and Babyak “worms” and “adepts of the Hungarian world”. Baloga accuses them of “promulgating the myth” of the oppression of the Hungarian minority. He compares them to the leaders of the Donbass Separatists. Baloga was particularly incensed by the attempt of the Hungarian government to block a routine tranche of EU aid to Ukraine, to the tune of 18 billion Euros.

Andrei Baloga, the son of the Godfather.

Things got so bad that even the American newspaper The Washington Post started worrying out loud that the Ukrainians would succeed in antagonizing their Hungarian minority, just as they had the Russian minority. The newspaper quoted Baloga’s son Andrei (who serves as the Mayor of Mukachevo) who declared that only Ukrainian symbols should be allowed on Ukrainian territory. This is why he ordered the Hungarian turul to be taken down from the castle and replaced with the Ukrainian trident: “Only Ukrainian symbols are allowed here. Transcarpathia was, is, and will be, Ukrainian land. This was sent as a signal to the Hungarian government.”

Andrei’s rhetoric clearly shows the antagonism this multi-generational crime family bears towards the local Hungarian population. The authorities in Hungary are worried about the ongoing provocations and tension which they believe the Ukrainian Nationalists are fomenting in a region that has historical ties to them, and in which they have a legitimate interest. The Hungarian authorities have openly expressed their worries about possible pogroms and violence which may occur in the future against people whom they consider to be part of their larger family; and many of whom have second citizenship.

Unfortunately, this war has offered the Ukrainian side a once in a lifetime opportunity to solve their “Hungarian problem” once and for all. We don’t expect anything good to come out of this situation, in the near future.

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