Hungary’s Fruitless Behaviour
Recently, news has broken that there is a possibility that Hungary will purchase 30 Mi-8/17 military helicopters from Russia, in an effort to upgrade its arsenal. The reason why this is considered to be controversial is because Hungary is a NATO member as well as an EU member. As a NATO member, Hungary is expected to purchase military equipment that is compatible with other NATO members, in an effort to increase interoperability (Imagine two soldiers from two different NATO member countries in a combat situation, if soldier A runs out of ammunition, interoperability on a basic level would allow soldier B to give some of his/her ammunition, which can be used immediately by soldier A). As an EU member, Hungary is supposed to abide by the arms embargo placed on Russia by the EU in July of 2014 for Moscow’s role in the Ukrainian conflict.
This is not the first time that a NATO member has purchased military equipment from non-NATO member, or the first time that a EU member state has had dealings with Russian military industries in the midst of the current sanctions regime.
There are several EU member states that still maintain active contracts with the Russian Ministry of Defense despite the current arms embargo. Italy has a contract to supply Moscow with 350 Iveco LMV “Lynx” light armored vehicles, with all indicators showing that the contract is still active. Greece, which is both a NATO and an EU member state, has also shown interest in purchasing Russian S-300 surface-to-air missiles for a system that has been in use by Greece since the 1990’s. Finally, Turkey which is a NATO member that has been working towards an improved air-defense system, has awarded the tender to a Chinese manufacturer in 2009, a manufacturer that is facing U.S. sanctions for violating the embargo placed on Iran, North Korea and Syria. This resulted in significant pushback from NATO members who were worried that the Chinese system might not be compatible with other NATO systems and that more worryingly, the Chinese system might contain viruses that can act as an access point to other NATO systems. After years of mixed signals from Ankara, it seems that the contract has been cancelled late last year.
What makes the Hungarian purchase significant when compared with the above mentioned trades is that unlike the Italian deal, which was signed before the current outbreak of conflict in Ukraine and the placement of the embargo, the Hungarian deal seems to have been agreed to post-embargo. The Greek deal with Russia might not violate the EU embargo since it is considered to be servicing a piece of equipment that was within the EU prior to the embargo. The Turkish deal with China comes closest to the Hungarian deal with Russia, since both Hungary and Turkey are NATO members, and they were both aiming to acquire new military technologies from either a state that is facing an embargo, or a company that is facing sanctions.
Similar to Turkey, Hungary seems to have cancelled the deal to purchase the Russian helicopters, according to Ukraine Today. If this is true, then similar to Turkey’s situation, after giving mixed signals, going against its allies and pushing against legal constraints, Hungary has gained the opprobrium and mistrust of its allies, brought its reliability into question, and has gained nothing in return. Hungary still needs to buy new helicopters to renew its aging soviet era helicopter fleet, but now it does so after this needless tarnishing of its reputation as both an EU and a NATO member.