Budapest praised the Verkhovna Rada—Ukraine’s parliament—after it voted 261–0 to classify mass arrests, deportations, and persecution by the Soviet military administration in Zakarpattia (also known as Transcarpathia) from 1944 to 1946 as crimes of the communist regime.

The vote makes the Verkhovna Rada the first state body in the world to recognize the repression of Zakarpattia’s Hungarian community as a crime, according to European Pravda. It creates an opening for historical reconciliation after years of minority-rights disputes, strained relations, and blocking Ukraine’s EU accession. However, Budapest continues to press Kyiv for further concessions.

After Soviet forces took control of Zakarpattia—Ukraine’s westernmost region, bordering Hungary and home to the country’s largest ethnic Hungarian community—the NKVD, Stalin’s secret police, and SMERSH, Soviet military counterintelligence, detained civilian men aged 18 to 50 under the pretext of mobilization.

The men were deported without trial to labor camps and the Soviet Gulag prison-camp system. Hungary’s Foreign Ministry said tens of thousands of Hungarian- and German-speaking men were deported, and many thousands died under the inhumane conditions of forced labor.

The campaign became known in Hungarian as malenkij robot. Derived from a Russian phrase meaning “a little work,” Soviet troops used this deceptive phrase when taking people away.

Hungarian Foreign Minister Anita Orbán—no relation to former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán—called the declaration “a fitting tribute” to thousands targeted by Soviet terror because of their Hungarian identity. She said Hungary was ready to help uncover the truth about the past and honor the victims.

The resolution calls for memorials, archival publications, research, and the inclusion of the repression in educational programs. It also draws a parallel with Russia’s present-day occupation practices, saying Moscow is committing similar large-scale repression against civilians in occupied Ukraine.

Marton Hajdu, chair of the Hungarian parliament’s foreign affairs committee, nevertheless said reconciliation must be accompanied by Kyiv’s full implementation of its June agreement with Budapest on minority rights.

A cautious thaw in Hungarian-Ukrainian relations

The exchange adds to tentative signs of improving relations since Péter Magyar ended Viktor Orbán’s 16 years in power in April. Magyar’s government summoned Russia’s ambassador after Moscow struck Zakarpattia and later closed a money-laundering case involving $82 million belonging to Ukraine’s state-owned Oschadbank, reversing another Orbán-era dispute.

Budapest and Kyiv also reached a June agreement covering Hungarian-language education and the use of Hungarian in public services. Yet Magyar’s government has continued to slow parts of Ukraine’s EU accession process amid domestic pressure to defend Zakarpattia’s Hungarian community. The recognition of Soviet crimes, therefore, provides new common ground without settling the wider disagreements between the neighbors.

Hungary has closed the Oschadbank case after finding no crime connected to an $82 million shipment of cash and gold belonging to Ukraine’s state-owned savings bank, The Insider reported on 20 August 2026, citing the bank’s lawyer Lóránt Horváth.

Closing the money-laundering case removes the allegation used to justify seizing Oschadbank’s assets. A separate criminal investigation is examining the couriers’ detention, while Prime Minister Péter Magyar’s government has opened an internal review of the agencies involved. Together with the return of the assets, these steps reverse how this case was handled under former PM Viktor Orbán and may help improve relations with Ukraine.

Hungary’s National Tax and Customs Administration (NAV), the country’s tax and customs authority, traced the assets to a documented deal between Austria’s Raiffeisen Bank International and Oschadbank. Raiffeisen provided records establishing the assets’ origin and Oschadbank’s payment, according to Horváth’s account of NAV’s decision.

Meanwhile, a separate investigation into the couriers’ alleged unlawful detention remains open. János Hajdu, the former head of Hungary’s Counter-Terrorism Center (TEK), is a suspect. TEK is the country’s armed counterterrorism police.

A leaked prosecution document named former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and three other former officials, including Hajdu, among those involved in deciding on the operation. Orbán has not been named as a suspect, Euronews reported on 30 June.

Orbán denies wrongdoing and says the raid was lawful.

How the Oschadbank case began

TEK stopped two armored cash-in-transit vans near Budapest on 5 March 2026. They carried $40 million, €35 million, and nine kilograms of gold from Vienna to Kyiv under a routine banking contract, Euromaidan Press reported. Officers detained the seven Oschadbank employees as witnesses, kept them handcuffed for 28 hours, and denied them lawyers and Ukrainian consular access, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry said.

Hungary deported the couriers and imposed three-year Schengen bans, which barred them from most of Europe, although none had been charged with a crime. The orders and bans were later annulled.

Orbán’s government nevertheless portrayed the shipment as possible money laundering. Fidesz politicians also alleged, without evidence, that it was intended to finance Magyar’s then-opposition party, Tisza.

Hungary returned the vans, cash, and gold by 6 May. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha called the handover a break with Orbán-era “lawlessness” and a sign that relations could advance through “mutual respect and healthy pragmatism,” Reuters reported.