Serbia’s top military brass said Ukraine was not behind an incident involving explosives near a gas pipeline with Hungary, in a rebuke to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who heavily implied Kyiv was involved.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, a close ally of Orbán, said Sunday that authorities found “an explosive of devastating power” near a gas pipeline transporting Russian gas from the country to its neighbor Hungary, a week before Hungary’s general election on April 12.
Orbán said Sunday after convening an emergency meeting of the National Defense Council that the Serbian authorities had uncovered a “sabotage operation” in Vojvodina, Serbia and seemingly linked it to Ukraine, which he said had been “working for years to cut Europe off from Russian energy” and posed “a direct threat to Hungary,” though he did not formally accuse Kyiv.
But Đuro Jovanić, director of Belgrade’s counterintelligence Military Security Agency (VBA), said Sunday evening it was “not true that the Ukrainians tried to organize” the plot, which involved “explosives specially packaged, hermetically sealed, detonator caps.”
“The manufacturer of the explosives does not mean that he is also the one who ordered or executed it,” he said, adding, “The markings on the explosives show that it was manufactured in the U.S.”
Orbán’s claims of sabotage were also met with skepticism by his main opponent in Sunday’s vote, Péter Magyar, who is looking to unseat the pro-Russia prime minister.
Magyar said Orbán, who has made Hungary’s energy security and Budapest’s bitter feud with Kyiv a cornerstone of his campaign, was potentially conducting a false flag operation with the “help of Serbian and Russian [actors], due to the collapse of the support of Fidesz,” his party.
“If Viktor Orbán and his propaganda use this provocation for campaign purposes, it will be an open admission that this is a pre-planned false flag operation,” Magyar added.
Ukraine’s foreign ministry spokesperson “categorically” denied any responsibility and hit out at attempts to “falsely link Ukraine,” adding the alleged plot was “most probably, a Russian false-flag operation” ahead of the election.
Orbán and his Fidesz party are badly trailing Magyar’s opposition Tisza party in next Sunday’s vote, according to POLITICO’s Poll of Polls.
POLITICO contacted the Hungarian and Serbian governments for comment.
Source:
www.politico.eu
