Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday that Hungary has returned millions in cash and gold seized from a Ukrainian state bank convoy earlier this year.
The release of the funds is a fresh sign that the countries’ relationship has mellowed since Hungarians voted out Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, with his successor Péter Magyar also working hard to improve relations with Brussels to unlock European Union funds.
“An important step in relations with Hungary,” Zelenskyy wrote on X, announcing that €35 million, $40 million and 9 kilograms of gold belonging to Ukraine’s state-owned Oschadbank had been handed back.
In a separate statement, Oschadbank chairman Yuriy Katsion thanked Hungary for its “constructive approach”, noting that the seizure “was a violation of many international norms and rules of interstate cooperation.”
The dispute erupted in early March, when Hungarian authorities stopped a convoy in Budapest that was transporting the assets between Austria and Ukraine on behalf of Oschadbank. They detained seven Ukrainians in the process, and Kyiv reacted furiously. Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha accused Budapest of “taking hostages and stealing money,” calling the seizure “state terrorism and racketeering.”
Orbán’s government then doubled down. Days later, Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party introduced legislation aimed at formalizing the confiscation while a national security probe unfolded.
The incident happened during the final weeks of Orbán’s rule, during a bitter election campaign. But since Magyar’s April 12 election victory, relations between Budapest and Kyiv have started to thaw.
Hungary has already dropped its veto on the release of a €90 billion EU loan to Ukraine, while tensions over the Druzhba oil pipeline — the cause of another schism between the two countries — have eased since oil shipments to Hungary resumed in late April.