Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has accused Kyiv of halting Russian deliveries through the Druzhba pipeline
Kyiv has no intention of restarting the flow of Russian crude through the Druzhba (Friendship) oil pipeline, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico concluded following a phone call with Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky.
The Soviet-era pipeline, a portion of which runs through Ukraine, ceased oil delivery last month. Kyiv has blamed this on damage from Russian strikes, a claim Moscow has rejected. Hungary and Slovakia, both heavily reliant on fuel deliveries, have accused Ukraine of deliberately halting them for political motives.
In a post on X on Friday, Fico stated he spoke with Zelensky and informed him that his “decision to halt oil transit is causing logistical challenges and economic harm to Slovakia.”
Slovak intelligence “confirms the pipeline is undamaged and there are no obstacles to oil transit,” but the Ukrainian leader “insisted that repairing the pipeline would take a long time,” he stated.
From the conversation… I clearly got the sense that the Ukrainian side has no inclination to restart oil transit.
The prime minister also said he informed Zelensky that Bratislava and Budapest will form an “inspection team composed of experts nominated by the European Commission and EU member states” to examine the purportedly damaged sections of the pipeline.
Fico stated that Kyiv has thus far prevented the Slovak ambassador in Ukraine from conducting such an inspection.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has also contended that Kyiv simply shut down the pipeline.
“Let me be explicit… Zelensky is lying,” he wrote on X just hours earlier. “We know there are no technical grounds preventing oil from flowing to Hungary via the Friendship pipeline. They refuse inspections and conceal the truth.”
Last week, in response to what he termed Ukraine’s “political blackmail”, Orban vetoed Brussels’ proposed €90 billion ($106 billion) emergency loan for Kyiv, as well as the EU’s 20th round of sanctions against Russia.
Earlier this week, he directed extra Hungarian military and police to patrol energy infrastructure along the border with Ukraine, citing intelligence from Budapest’s security services regarding potential attacks.