Half of Hungarians, Bulgarians, and Slovaks do not blame Russia for the outbreak of war in Ukraine, according to a survey by the GLOBSEC think tank, which regularly conducts public opinion polls in nine Central and Eastern European countries (Poland, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Estonia, Romania, Latvia, Slovakia, Bulgaria, and Hungary). This year, the focus was on the situation in Ukraine.
The survey was conducted in late March and April, more than a month after the Russian invasion. Only 51 percent of respondents in Slovakia, 50 percent in Bulgaria, and 48 percent in Hungary said Russia was responsible for the war. In Slovakia and Bulgaria, a significant percentage of respondents said the West was responsible for the war and provoked Russia (28 percent and 26 percent, respectively). Hungary, on the other hand, has the highest percentage of those who believe that "Ukraine, which oppressed the Russian-speaking part of the population," is to blame at 18 percent.
Even before the war, Budapest and Kyiv have been arguing over minority rights since the Ukrainian parliament in 2017 passed a law "ensuring the functioning of Ukrainian as a state language." This is because Hungary believes that it violates the rights of the Transcarpathian ethnic minority to be educated in Hungarian.
In contrast, opinions that the West is responsible for the situation in Ukraine were also present before the war. In January, 44 percent of Slovaks believed that the United States and NATO were to blame for the growing tension in the country.