Hungary blocks Ukrainian media outlets in response to Ukraine's recent blocking of some Hungarian news sites

Minister of the Prime Minister's Office, Gergely Gulyás announced on Facebook on Monday that Hungary would be blocking access to several Ukrainian media outlets from the country. The move follows Ukraine's decision announced in mid-September, to block several foreign papers, including the Hungarian pro-government outlets Origo and Demokrata, justifying the move by arguing that the sites regularly disseminate Russian propaganda.

According to Gulyás, what bothered Ukraine was that these papers "dared to write critically about the policy of sanctioning Russia and providing Ukraine with weapons" – and also because instead of portraying the EU and NATO as effective institutions, they portrayed them as fragmented ones.

"Following the principle of reciprocity, Hungary is today introducing a mirrored response against Ukrainian news websites, which will no longer be accessible in Hungary,"

the minister wrote. "I don't think many people read the Ukrainian Pravda or even desire to. However, a sovereign country must respond proportionately to a completely unjustified attack," he wrote. According to Gulyás's post, the blocked Ukrainian newspapers are as follows:

• tsn.ua
• oboz.ua
• anons-zak.com.ua
• ungvar.uz.ua/
• zakarpattya.net.ua/
• pravda.com.ua
• hromadske.ua
• nv.ua
• lb.ua
• insiderinfo.com.ua
• uaonline.com.ua
• eurointegration.com.ua

Russia had previously introduced similar measures; last year, for example, when – in response to the EU blocking access to three Russian outlets – blocking access to several EU outlets in their country, the Hungarian independent news website 444 was included in the list, thus becoming the only Hungarian media outlet banned in the country. We have sent questions to the Hungarian government about this and asked whether they had taken similar and proportionate measures in response to Russia's ban since then.

Incidentally, last year, Gergely Gulyás said: "I disapprove of 444 being banned anywhere." At the time, Hungary was the only country opposed to a joint EU statement condemning Russia’s move, according to the Prime Minister's Press Office, “because it would have only led to Russia responding with additional counter measures.” It seems that this concern was not raised now with regard to to responding to the Ukrainian decision.