Hungary is going to install an air defence system in the northeastern part of the country as the threat of an escalation of the Ukraine-Russia war is “greater than ever”, its defence minister said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday lowered the threshold for a nuclear strike in response to a broader range of conventional attacks, after the United States allowed Ukraine to fire American missiles deep into Russia.
Ukraine used U.S.-made ATACMS missiles for the first time on Tuesday, Moscow said, an attack regarded by Russia as a major escalation.
“We still trust that there will be peace as soon as possible, through diplomacy instead of a military solution,” Kristof Szalay-Bobrovniczky said in a video posted on his Facebook late on Wednesday.
“However, to prepare for all possibilities, I ordered the recently purchased air control and air defence systems and the capabilities built on them to be installed in the northeast,” he said after a meeting of the Defence Council that was convened by Prime Minister Viktor Orban to discuss the developments in Ukraine.
“The threat of the escalation of the Ukraine-Russia war is greater than ever,” Szalay-Bobrovniczky said.
Hungary, a NATO and European Union member, shares a border with Ukraine.
The minister did not specify which parts of Hungary’s air defence system would be installed in the northeast.
Hungary’s military, currently undergoing a modernisation program, bought the French Mistral air defence systems alongside four other EU countries last year. In 2020 Hungary agreed to buy NASAMS air defence systems from Norway’s Kongsberg and U.S. arms manufacturer Raytheon Technologies.
The minister said some units of the Hungarian military were also on high alert.
A U.S. air defence base designed to detect and take down ballistic missiles as part of a broader North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) missile shield is operational in Northern Poland. The alliance’s chief Jens Stoltenberg had said earlier this year that the readiness of the base was an important step for transatlantic security in the face of a growing threat posed by ballistic missiles.
The system, dubbed Aegis Ashore, is based at the northern Polish town of Redzikowo and capable of intercepting short- to intermediate-range ballistic missiles, according to NATO.
NATO says Aegis Ashore is purely defensive. About 200 military personnel are stationed at the two interceptor sites in Poland and Romania, with the base in the Romanian town of Deveselu operational since 2016.
Team Bharatshakti
(With inputs from Reuters)
