Serbia's top military leadership has stated that Ukraine is not behind the explosives incident near the gas pipeline with Hungary, rebuking Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, "who heavily implied Kyiv was involved," Politico reports, writes UNN.
Details
Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, a close ally of Orbán, said on Sunday that authorities had found "explosives of destructive power" near a gas pipeline transporting Russian gas from the country to neighboring Hungary, a week before Hungary's April 12 elections.
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 seeks to unseat the pro-Russian prime minister.
Magyar said that Orbán, who has made Hungary's energy security and Budapest's fierce animosity with Kyiv a cornerstone of his campaign, was potentially conducting a false flag operation with "the help of Serbian and Russian [players] due to the collapse of support for his Fidesz party."
"If Viktor Orbán and his propaganda use this provocation for electoral purposes, it will be an open admission that this is a pre-planned false flag operation," Magyar added.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine "categorically" denied any responsibility and criticized attempts to "falsely link Ukraine," adding that the alleged plot was "most likely a Russian false flag operation" ahead of the elections.
Orbán and his Fidesz party are significantly trailing Magyar's opposition Tisza party in next Sunday's vote, according to the poll.