Ukraine will not resume oil transit to Slovakia in coming days, Bratislava says

Bratislava, March 4 (CTK) - Ukraine will not resume oil deliveries to Slovakia via the Druzhba pipeline in the coming days, the Slovak Ministry of Economy told CTK today. After repeated delays, the transit of crude was most recently scheduled to resume today, according to Bratislava, based on a notification from Kyiv.

Slovakia and Hungary have repeatedly accused Ukraine in recent days of dragging its feet on resuming pipeline operations. According to Kyiv, Druzhba was damaged in a Russian attack at the end of January. Ukraine says a Russian drone struck part of the pipeline in western Ukraine at the time, and that Ukrainians are trying to repair the damage.

The Slovak Ministry of Economy said the Ukrainian side had promised to provide further information on oil transport this Friday.

Slovakia and Hungary have long depended on supplies of oil produced in Russia, which launched its military invasion of Ukraine in 2022. After oil deliveries via the Druzhba pipeline were interrupted, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said it was unclear who had damaged the pipeline. Fico's government then declared an oil emergency and allocated part of the country's oil reserves to the Bratislava refinery Slovnaft, which is part of Hungary's MOL Group. Slovnaft then began working to secure oil imports via another route. Fico also said Slovakia would not help Ukraine with emergency electricity supplies, which Kyiv imports following Russian attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen spoke by phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy about energy security on Tuesday. The Financial Times (FT) reported that EU Ambassador to Kyiv Katarína Mathernová had not received Ukraine's approval to inspect the damaged Druzhba pipeline.

In a letter to the head of the EU executive on Tuesday, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán wrote that Kyiv was blocking the restart of Druzhba for political reasons, intending to interfere in Hungary's election campaign. He said Hungary would not support any European Union decision in Ukraine's favor until things returned to normal. Budapest is blocking a 90 billion euro (2.2 trillion Kč) European Union loan to Ukraine.