BEREHOVE, Zakarpattia Oblast — Skinny grey smoke drifts past the patchwork of Soviet-era house blocks, historic buildings, and hillside vineyards that make up Berehove — the center of the Hungarian group in Ukraine's westernmost Zakarpattia Oblast.
"That's Hungary, over there," gestures Vitalii Antipov, a member of the native council, towards the not-so-distant horizon. He stands on prime of a hill adorned by a large white cross with a makeshift inscription thanking the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
A Ukrainian flag fluttering on a pole close by is accompanied, as is frequent right here, by a Hungarian tricolor.
Residing on Ukraine's western border, the Hungarians of Zakarpattia — a area often known as Transcarpathia — have shared this land for hundreds of years with Ukrainians, Romanians, and others, forming a singular and multifaceted group.
In more moderen years, they discovered themselves a key device in Viktor Orban's energy play towards Kyiv. Zakarpattia additionally took heart stage in an unprecedented spying scandal, with Ukraine claiming to have uncovered a Hungarian espionage community within the area.
"Hungary's affect (in Zakarpattia) shouldn’t be something new… and can seemingly stay," Antipov acknowledges. He himself is of each Ukrainian and Hungarian descent, sharing a connection to the 2 teams that usually overlap right here.
"The conflict has modified rather a lot within the minds and hearts of the Hungarian group."
A portrait of Vitalii Antipov in Berehove, Zakarpattia Oblast, Ukraine on Might 22, 2025. (Elena Kalinichenko/The Kyiv Unbiased)
However removed from the simplistic picture offered by Budapest, Ukraine's Hungarians have reacted in a different way to latest challenges, specifically the conflict: whereas some have fled westward into Europe, in search of security and stability, others have taken up arms, pushed by a way of responsibility and solidarity.
"The conflict has modified rather a lot within the minds and hearts of the Hungarian group," Antipov says.
"I felt it. In Berehove, Vynohradiv, in small villages, in every single place there are households whose sons are preventing, whose kin have joined the Armed Forces of Ukraine or are serving to as volunteers – even Hungarians."
Orban's affect in Zakarpattia
The border, now just a few kilometers from the city, has been shifting by means of the ages.
Zakarpattia modified fingers over the course of the twentieth century: Austria-Hungary, Czechoslovakia, short-lived Carpathian Ukraine, after which Hungary, till it was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1945. Later, it grew to become the westernmost frontier of the unbiased Ukrainian state.
The geographical and historic proximity has solid a decent bond between Hungary and the area's Hungarians, and Budapest is ensuring it stays so.
Within the 2010s, Hungary sparked a diplomatic row with Kyiv by handing out its passports to native Hungarians. Many have accepted, enticed by the imaginative and prescient of better-paid employment within the EU. Some used double citizenship — which isn’t acknowledged by Ukrainian regulation — to obtain larger pensions from Hungary whereas residing in Ukraine, locals say.
By way of native civil society organizations, Hungary has been funding faculties that train within the Hungarian language, cultural occasions, and extra, says Csilla Fedinec, senior analysis fellow at HUN-REN Middle for Social Sciences in Budapest.
Zakarpattia's Hungarians "have their very own newspapers, they’ve their very own tv in Hungarian," Andrii Liubka, the director of the Institute for Central European Technique (ICES) in Uzhhorod, tells the Kyiv Unbiased.
"Even when all media shops are dying, and publishing could be very pricey, they proceed to publish newspapers in Hungarian… to unfold their agenda right here, among the many local people."
Surveys present that a lot of the Hungarian-language shops in Zakarpattia are successfully managed by Orban's media empire.
In accordance with Liubka, the difficulty isn't Hungary's monetary support itself however that it's getting used to construct parallel social buildings, making the group reliant on Orban's energy community.
This has fostered an environment of self-censorship, the place political views are hardly ever expressed for worry of risking monetary loss or attracting public backlash.
Fedinec notes that whereas "Hungary gives particular help for Hungarians dwelling in neighboring international locations," this "additionally appears to require political allegiance with the Hungarian governing events."
However there have been circumstances the place the Hungarian group spoke out towards Orban. In 2023, as Hungary was threatening to derail the launch of EU accession talks with Ukraine over the supposed curtailment of minority rights, Hungarian group leaders printed an open letter to Orban to not block Ukraine's accession.
"Hungarians dwelling in Zakarpattia — those that haven’t left — perceive that they’re related to this nation," says Vitalii Diachuk, an analyst at ICES.
"By proscribing Ukraine's proper to affix the EU, the Hungarian authorities is… closing some new alternatives for the Hungarian group. And the group understands this."
'We are not any spies' — Fragile concord of Berehove
Politics is not any matter for the streets of Berehove. Questions on Orban are brushed apart — generally with suspicion, generally with amusement. "I don't hearken to Orban," says Oksana Savula, a Ukrainian flower woman, with a smile.
"Politics is politics," feedback Dmytro Kosmeda, a Ukrainian resident. His companion, Yurii Buzhak, provides: "Let's say that what’s reported within the media doesn’t replicate actuality in any respect."
Requested in regards to the relationship between the native Hungarian and Ukrainian communities, Yurii responds confidently: "There are completely no issues… There is no such thing as a type of prejudice towards any nation."
"We now have at all times lived right here peacefully — that’s, we’ve got no political issues."
Dmytro's spouse is Hungarian, and so they use each languages at house. Although bilingualism appears frequent right here, among the native Hungarians shrink back from answering, explaining that they can’t converse Ukrainian.
"I’m Ukrainian, however we’ve got been talking Hungarian since beginning," says Mykhailo Popovych, a person promoting strawberries and selfmade wine not removed from the city's heart. "We now have at all times lived right here peacefully — that’s, we’ve got no political issues."
Overhearing the dialogue, a person at a neighboring stall quips, "We are not any spies," subtly revealing what’s on individuals's minds prior to now weeks.
Most locals echo these sentiments, describing a harmonious cohabitation between Ukrainian and Hungarian audio system that coalesced into what some speak about as virtually a separate identification: "Transcarpathian."
Encapsulating the city's nature, Berehove's central market is abuzz with Ukrainian, Hungarian, and Russian. Streets are lined with each Hungarian and Ukrainian flags, and retailers bear indicators in both or each languages.
"It doesn't hassle me; it by no means has," says Viktoriia Skoropadska, a home merchandise vendor on the bazaar, when requested in regards to the totally different languages spoken in her hometown. She is ethnically Hungarian however solutions in Ukrainian.
Solely a "silly, unintelligent particular person" can begin a battle due to language variations, she provides.
The Kyiv IndependentNatalia Yermak
Migration, language, and Zakarpattia in flux
However irrespective of how cautious locals are in discussing politics, world occasions have had a serious influence on the group.
Orban has persistently accused Ukraine of infringing on the rights of the Hungarian minority, focusing his criticism on the 2017 legal guidelines increasing the usage of Ukrainian in schooling. The laws — which is but to enter into drive — was designed to counter many years of Russification, however Budapest has solid it as discrimination towards the Hungarian minority.
"Persons are afraid that these adjustments could trigger their kids to lose the chance to study freely of their native language," Antipov says. "The Hungarian minority is frightened about shedding its linguistic identification and is afraid of assimilation."
It's not the language legal guidelines which can be the menace to the Hungarian group: "it's depopulation."
A portrait of Andrii Liubka within the workplace of the Institute for Central European Technique in Uzhhorod, Zakarpattia Oblast, Ukraine on Might 22, 2025. (Elena Kalinichenko/The Kyiv Unbiased)
Nonetheless, Liubka feedback that it's not the language legal guidelines which can be the menace to the Hungarian group: "it's depopulation."
Whereas 150,000 residents declared themselves ethnic Hungarians within the 2001 census knowledge, this quantity is believed to have dropped — as Liubka and Diachuk say — to round 70,000-80,000. Many residents, particularly the youth, have left for Hungary, with the migration solely accelerated by the invasion.
For a lot of, efforts to start out a brand new life in Hungary have been difficult, suggesting some may return as soon as the conflict is over, locals say.
"We, ethnic Hungarians from Zakarpattia, will at all times be foreigners in Hungary. We can be Ukránok (the Hungarian phrase for a Ukrainian)," Antipov says.
The conflict can also be concurrently bringing individuals from Ukraine's war-torn japanese areas, altering the societal material and inflicting tensions.
"Our Transcarpathians are virtually gone now, everyone seems to be newcomers, displaced individuals, all strangers," says Andzhelika, a Ukrainian resident of Vynohradiv, a city 30 kilometers east of Berehove.
"Our individuals (Hungarians) have left Ukraine… Many households have been separated. Ladies are right here, males over there," laments Andrea Grita, a Hungarian shopkeeper from Berehove.
Andrea says that her eldest daughter has lived in Hungary for six years. Her son, who will quickly flip 18 — the age at which male residents of Ukraine can not depart the nation throughout martial regulation — is finding out there.
Among the impacts should not distinctive to Zakarpattia. Many locals complain about rising costs and the financial downturn, or see newcomers with mistrust.
"Because the conflict started, individuals don't assist one another anymore. And everybody retains quiet," says Zhanna Kokosh, a stallkeeper on the Berehove market. Holding each Hungarian and Ukrainian citizenship, she finds it tough to categorise her identification.
For Zhanna, the preventing itself feels distant. Her essential concern is the hardship going through Berehove's aged, the poor, and deserted animals. A stray canine lies underneath her stall as she speaks.
"No person desires to struggle. What for? Why ought to the boys be taken?" she asks. Zhanna expresses frustration that the city's poor are being ignored whereas newcomers get pleasure from larger materials safety.
"They (newcomers) don't prefer it after we converse Russian or Hungarian," she provides. "However that's simply how we converse… Struggle or no conflict."
Anxieties of conflict
The Russian invasion has fueled anxieties amongst native Ukrainians, additional fanned by disinformation.
Andzhelika mentions that just a few months after the beginning of the full-scale conflict, an unspecified Ukrainian media publication unfold claims that Hungarian forces have been massing close to the border for an invasion.
In response, the locals organized common patrols with dozens of vehicles, which — because the publication asserted — made "Orban afraid to ship in troops right here," Andzhelika provides. She herself voices uncertainty in regards to the story, recalling she noticed no Hungarian troops on the border on the time.
"They perceive their connection to the state, the place they grew up, they dwell in… there are models with many Hungarians which can be supported by Hungarian civil society organizations."
A portrait of Vitalii Diachuk within the workplace of the Institute for Central European Technique in Uzhhorod, Zakarpattia Oblast, Ukraine on Might 22, 2025. (Elena Kalinichenko/The Kyiv Unbiased)
The fears surged once more after the detention of the suspected spy, who, as Andzhelika offhandedly mentions, labored at a stall not removed from her and was recognized round Vynohradiv.
However the conflict has additionally impacted the group otherwise. Whereas some could really feel it distant, others are extra personally concerned — Viktoriia Skoropadska notes that her 54-year-old brother fought within the Zaporizhzhia sector for seven months.
Round 400 ethnic Hungarians have served within the ranks of Ukraine's Armed Forces in the course of the full-scale conflict.
"They perceive their connection to the state, the place they grew up, they dwell in… there are models with many Hungarians which can be supported by Hungarian civil society organizations," Diachuk says.
Others contribute to the wrestle financially. Native initiatives and communities "allocate their budgets to help both particular models, or to buy drones, or as one-time funds to mobilized group members," Liubka provides.
As earlier than the conflict, the image of the Hungarian group is one among many faces. In some circumstances, the Russian invasion and Orban's rhetoric stoked anxieties and division. For others, it was an incentive to take up arms to affix what Antipov calls a "frequent wrestle."
Whether or not fractured or galvanized, Zakarpattia's Hungarians should discover their place in a area that’s being deeply remodeled by the conflict, migration, and the fallout of grand politics.
The Kyiv IndependentYuliia Taradiuk