Focus returns to Ukraine, at least for the morning

Several EU ministers were due in Bucha, Ukraine, on Tuesday to mark four years since the town’s liberation and the massacre that turned it into one of the most searing early symbols of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

The visit comes after weeks in which the EU’s attention has been pulled toward fallout from the Iran war, because one external crisis apparently was not enough. The delegation is being led by the bloc’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas.

Ministers are expected to discuss how to move forward on accountability for wartime crimes, including the long-promised special tribunal for the crime of aggression. The idea still needs more political support and funding before it can become real rather than merely available in principle, which is a familiar European Union staging area.

Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, said on social media:

“The scale of Russian atrocities in the course of its aggression is unseen on European soil since WWII. The crime of aggression is the root cause of them all. There must be accountability and there will be no amnesty for Russian criminals, including the highest political and military leadership of the Russian Federation.”

He compared the proposed tribunal with the Nuremberg trials of defeated Nazi leaders and said it was needed to “prevent such horrible crimes from repeating again in the future.”

Kallas later said Bucha had “come to symbolise the cruelty of Russia’s war” against Ukraine. She said, “Four years after these mass killings, we remember the victims. What happened here cannot be denied,” and added that the EU was “committed to ensuring that these crimes do not go unpunished, including by supporting the Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression, alongside the Claims Commission.”

She also said, “Russia must be held accountable for what it has done to Ukraine,” and earlier reiterated that the bloc would keep providing “military, financial, energy, and humanitarian support” to Kyiv.

No breakthrough expected on Hungary

Not everything on the EU’s Ukraine file is moving at the same speed. No progress is expected on the bloc’s €90bn loan to Hungary or on the 20th package of sanctions against Russia, both of which remain blocked by Budapest.

Separately, EU energy ministers are set to hold a call later in the day to discuss how the crisis in the Middle East is affecting energy prices. Some countries are pushing ahead with unilateral measures they say are needed to protect their economies. The EU, naturally, is now managing several crises at once and checking its calendar for room.

There is also political drama in Denmark, where coalition talks continue after last week’s parliamentary election produced a deadlock.

New reporting raises pressure on Budapest

On top of the usual deadlock, fresh reporting added another headache for Brussels and national capitals.

A joint investigation by The Insider and the regional outlets VSquare, DelfiEE, FrontStory and the Investigative Center of Ján Kuciak, published on Tuesday morning, alleged that Hungary’s foreign minister Péter Szijjártó was in regular contact with senior Russian officials and discussed the EU’s confidential sanctions planning with them. The outlets said he was actively trying to find ways to block or delay the measures.

According to the report, Szijjártó told Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov that he was “always at your disposal” and offered help with removing certain people from EU sanctions lists.

Former Lithuanian foreign minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said one of the exchanges reported by the outlets was authentic.

One of the article’s authors, Szabolcs Panyi, a prominent Hungarian investigative journalist, was last week accused by the Hungarian government of spying for Ukraine, a claim condemned by media rights groups.

The five outlets said Szijjártó did not respond to their request for comment. He later tried to dismiss the reporting on X with a line that managed to be both defensive and self-incriminating: “they proved that I say the same publicly as I do on the phone. Nice work!”

He also said:

“For four years we have been saying that sanctions are a failure, causing more harm to the EU than to Russia. Hungary will never agree to sanction individuals or companies essential for our energy security, for achieving peace, or those with no reason to be on a sanctions list.”

Szijjártó had previously brushed off earlier reporting on the issue as fake news, though he did say he had held some calls with third-country partners and that this was part of routine diplomacy.

The latest revelations are likely to irritate Brussels further, where patience with Hungary’s close relationship with Russia is already thin. Both Viktor Orbán and Szijjártó have made repeated trips to Moscow.

The timing is also awkward, if only because it is less than two weeks before Hungary’s parliamentary election, which could end Orbán’s 16 years in power.

So yes, someone at the European Commission is almost certainly going to be asked about all of this at the midday briefing.