Outlet behind fake report on Hungarian minority party ban in Ukraine admits it had no facts

Mykola Starosta, head of the Novyny Zakarpattia website, which launched a fake news story about the supposed ban on the Party of Hungarians of Ukraine, a political party operating in Zakarpattia Oblast (Transcarpathia) in Ukraine's west, has admitted he had no confirmed information to support the claim.

On the morning of 28 May, Starosta told European Pravda that he had no confirmed information about the ban or Ukraine's intentions to impose it.

"This is an assumption, not a statement!!!" Starosta said in response to a query from European Pravda, noting that the headline of the relevant article on Novyny Zakarpattia contained a question mark.

Novyny Zakarpattia posted a report on Monday claiming that Ukraine intended to ban KMKSZ, a Hungarian minority party. The outlet cited an interview with Roland Tseber, a member of the Zakarpattia Oblast Council from the Servant of the People party. The outlet included a video of the interview, which was recorded the day before. It also independently asserted, supposedly based on its own sources, that the party Tseber was referring to was KMKSZ, the Transcarpathian Hungarian Cultural Association.

After that, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said that he was waiting for "immediate explanations from the Ukrainian government regarding media reports about the ban on the party representing the interests of the Hungarian community in Zakarpattia".

However, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry has denied the claims of a ban on the Party of Hungarians of Ukraine.