Zelenskyy: Druzhba oil pipeline could resume operations in a month and a half

The Druzhba oil pipeline could be technically ready to resume operations in a month and a half. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said this today, according to Reuters. Russian oil deliveries through the pipeline to Hungary and Slovakia were halted at the end of January, when, according to Kyiv, a fire caused by a Russian attack seriously damaged the pipeline. Budapest and Bratislava, however, accuse Zelenskyy of deliberately delaying the pipeline’s restart for political reasons. Kyiv argues that repairs to the pipeline are time-consuming.

Slovakia and Hungary have long been dependent on supplies of oil produced in Russia. After oil deliveries through the Druzhba pipeline were interrupted, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said it was not clear who had damaged the pipeline. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said today that his country would force Ukraine to resume the pipeline’s operations using political and financial tools.

“We will break this oil blockade,” Orbán said, according to MTI, at an event held today by the Hungarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

“We will force the Ukrainians to resume oil deliveries. Not through negotiations, going along with them or making compromises, but by using our strength,” he added.

Orbán also said that Hungary did not have the military power to force the Druzhba pipeline to resume operations. “I can assure everyone that this is not part of our plans. But we have political and financial tools,” he added. He provided no further details.

The Hungarian prime minister has long been known for his good relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and on Wednesday, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó met Putin at the Kremlin. At the meeting, he complained about Ukraine over the interruption of deliveries through the Druzhba pipeline, according to news agencies.

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

Russia launched its military invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The European Union then began rejecting Russian energy in order to make it harder for Moscow to finance the war. Until then, the EU had imported oil and gas mainly from Russia; today, its biggest suppliers are Norway and the United States.