Ursula von der Leyen left the European Parliament chamber while Slovak MEP Milan Uhrik was delivering a sharp attack on her leadership and on planned additional funding for Ukraine.
The European Commission president was present for the session reviewing the recent EU summit. As Milan Uhrik began speaking, von der Leyen rose and headed for the exit with members of her staff. Uhrik noticed her departure and raised his voice, calling across the chamber: “Don’t run, don’t run! You should be ashamed that, together with Zelensky, you are trying to cheat Europeans out of another 70 billion euros.”
In his Milan Uhrik speech, the Slovak MEP accused von der Leyen of taking tens of billions of euros from working European citizens who are already becoming poorer in order to finance a war that, in his words, has no military solution. He linked the planned 70 billion euros Ukraine package to the rising cost of living across the continent and to what he described as endless inflation and economic pressure on ordinary families.
Uhrik told the chamber that the timing of the new funding request was especially damaging. He pointed to protests across European cities and to the struggles of young people seeking housing, families dealing with higher prices, and companies facing energy costs. He asked why those domestic needs were not being prioritized instead of further transfers to Ukraine.
The exchange occurred during debate on the outcomes of the mid-October European Council summit. At that summit, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had requested additional support, and von der Leyen had publicly confirmed a financing gap of approximately 70 billion euros for 2027. The EU had already approved a 90 billion euro loan package covering parts of 2026 and 2027, but the Commission president stated that a further shortfall remained.
Video of the moment spread rapidly. In the footage, von der Leyen can be seen leaving the floor as Uhrik continues speaking and directs his remarks toward her departing figure. The Slovak MEP’s “don’t run von der Leyen” line became the most shared element of the clip. Supporters of Uhrik described the walkout as an inability to face criticism. Others noted that Commission presidents sometimes leave the chamber for scheduled commitments, though the timing and Uhrik’s direct address made the moment politically charged.
Milan Uhrik, leader of the Republic movement in Slovakia and a member of the European Parliament, has been a consistent critic of current EU policies on Ukraine, migration, and the Green Deal. In this intervention he framed the additional Ukraine funding as a transfer of resources away from European taxpayers at a time of domestic economic strain. He ended by telling von der Leyen that if the Commission could not or would not address the needs of European citizens first, it should step aside.
The incident added to ongoing tensions inside the European Parliament over the scale and duration of financial support for Ukraine. Several member states have expressed reservations about open-ended commitments, while the Commission and a majority of governments have maintained that continued assistance remains necessary. The 70 billion euros figure for 2027 has become a focal point of that debate.
No immediate official comment was issued by the European Commission on the walkout itself. The session continued after von der Leyen’s departure. The video of the Milan Uhrik speech and the moment she left the chamber continued to circulate widely, keeping the exchange in public view in the days that followed.
The confrontation underscored the growing divide within EU institutions between those who view sustained large-scale support for Ukraine as a strategic necessity and those who argue that European citizens are being asked to carry an unsustainable financial burden. Uhrik’s direct challenge and von der Leyen’s exit from the floor turned a routine parliamentary debate into one of the more memorable political moments of the current term.
