Russian sites Utro.ru, Holos UA,TASS, Ukraina.ru published a story this week claiming that Hungarians living in the Ukrainian region of Transcarpathia were declaring autonomy and the Ukrainian Security Service was detaining and persecuting the activists involved. Russian site Ukraina.ru claimed that two community leaders erected signs in Hungarian greeting visitors and proclaiming the territory as the realm of the Hungarian language.
The Transcarpathia Society of Hungarian Culture and the Democratic Union of Hungarians in Ukraine, the two largest organizations representing the Hungarian minority in Ukraine say they did not install the signs. They also pointed out that the signs are in poor, ungrammatical Hungarian.
The Democratic Union of Hungarians in Ukraine issued an official statement denying they had anything to do with the signs and condemning their installation as “a provocation against the Hungarian community”. They call upon Ukrainian authorities to dismantle the signs and investigate the matter.
Ukraina.ru claims that Ukrainian authorities are detaining ethnic Hungarians and conducting searches in their homes and offices, among those detained is the leader of a regional council Josef Szin. On the day of his alleged arrest, Szin was celebrating the historic anniversary of his town’s founding.
StopFake has debunked several stories about alleged regional minority autonomy demands. This latest version follows previous fakes about Polish, Gagauz and Romanian communities in Ukraine demanding autonomy.
