Hungarian PM-owned newspaper publishes anti-Ukrainian article right before Foreign Minister visits Ukraine

The Magyar Nemzet newspaper, part of the Hungarian prime minister's informal media empire, has published an article criticising the situation with Ukrainian media prior to Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó's visit to Uzhhorod.

Source: Magyar Nemzet’s article; European Pravda

Quote: "While a Potemkin village is being organised for the foreign press, not a single crumb of classical journalism can be found in the Ukrainian national press," the article states, without mentioning the author's name [Potiomkin – fake; In politics and economics, a Potemkin village is a construction (literal or figurative) whose purpose is to provide an external façade to a situation, to make people believe that the situation is better than it is – ed.].

Details: Magyar Nemzet, in particular, criticises the activities of the Media Center Ukraine: "They provide additional information to correspondents visiting the Eastern European country about what is permitted and what is not. For example, they explain how to correctly describe and pronounce settlement names in Ukrainian while omitting their original Russian names. According to this, Kiev is Kyiv, Kharkov is Kharkiv, Dnepr is Dnipro, Donbass is Donbas, and Odessa is only Odesa."

At the same time, Magyar Nemzet's article uses the name Lemberg to refer to Lviv, despite the fact that the correct name, Lviv, is also common in Hungary and is used by the Hungarian government.

The article also criticises independent Ukrainian media outlets, claiming that they publish materials that satisfy Ukrainian authorities using George Soros' or European taxpayers' money.

"Male authors working in media organisations with such connections are not threatened by mobilisation; they can enjoy privileges if they scold Russians, Slovaks, Hungarians, Putin, Trump, Tucker Carlson, Viktor Orbán, Robert Fico, Pope Francis, and anyone who has doubts about Kyiv's leadership from abroad," the article says.

Among them, Magyar Nemzet mentions European Pravda, criticising it for "anti-Hungarian articles" and even writing the names of hostile countries and politicians in small letters in social media comments.

At the same time, the publication mentions the personality of "TV presenter who stands for peace" Diana Panchenko, who urged her counterparts working in Ukraine to temporarily leave the country if they wanted to work freely. Diana Panchenko, a well-known pro-Russian propagandist, has worked for Putin's crony Viktor Medvedchuk's TV channels NewsOne, 112 Ukraine, and ZIK.

It should be noted that the article in this virtually state-owned newspaper was published on the eve of Hungary's Minister of Foreign Affairs Péter Szijjártó's expected visit to Ukraine, on which some hopes are pinned in the context of improved Ukrainian-Hungarian relations.

Background: Ukraine's and Hungary's foreign ministers will meet on 29 January in Uzhhorod to prepare for a meeting between Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

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