As House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) pushed a multi-bill package of foreign assistance in the House (including one that allocates approximately $60 billion to Ukraine), Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) pushed back proposing amendments to the legislation including the ‘Ukraine Security Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2024.’
Greene’s amendment included the following language: “No funding shall be made available to Ukraine unless restrictions on ethnic minorities’, including Hungarians in Transcarpathia, right to use their native languages in schools are lifted.”
I’ve been pretty hard over on dissauding people from thinking that dumb and odious people like MTG are knowing Russian assets, and that they’re mostly performance artists. But yes, someone on her staff (or some other Republican staff) had to cough up “Transcarpathian.” https://t.co/Mr9mbTrTAX
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) April 19, 2024
Political pundit ‘Jay in Kyiv’ responded: “The amendment that Marjorie Taylor Greene just proposed to sabotage the Ukraine bill is something that is such a nuanced Russian disinfo narrative that it could have only come directly from her Russian handlers.
“The notion that Hungarians are being persecuted in Ukraine is insane BUT it’s being pushed by both Orban (who was promised a piece of Ukraine by Putin) and Russian disinfo machine. For an American to suggest this really confirms she is being handled.”
Note: ‘Transcarpathian’ is an English term describing Zakarpattia Oblast, a region in western Ukraine that borders Hungary. Hungarians living in Ukraine (12.1% of the the Transcarpathian population is Hungarian) have criticized Ukraine’s 2017 education law which makes Ukrainian the required language of study in state schools.
American political scientist Tom Nichols responded to ‘Jay in Kyiv’, writing: “I’ve been pretty hard over on dissuading people from thinking that dumb and odious people like MTG are knowing Russian assets, and that they’re mostly performance artists. But yes, someone on her staff (or some other Republican staff) had to cough up ‘Transcarpathian.’”