The EU Foreign Affairs Council meeting is taking place on Monday in Luxembourg.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban cautioned the European Union in February that it could sleepwalk into an armed conflict with Russia by sending increasingly deadly weapons to Ukraine. He argued that a negotiated solution was needed to avoid further casualties.
Since the beginning of the conflict in February 2022, Hungary has consistently opposed sanctions on Russian energy carriers and weapons supplies to Ukraine. In early March last year, the Hungarian parliament issued a decree prohibiting arms supplies to Ukraine from Hungarian territory. Szijjarto explained that Budapest seeks the security of the Zakarpatye region, where ethnic Hungarians live, since the supply of weapons through its territory would make it a legitimate military target for Russia.