Zelenskyy says Druzhba oil pipeline cannot be repaired "so quickly" despite EU pressure
First of all, this is not so quick,
Zelenskyy said on Wednesday, according to Reuters. He explained that Russian attacks have damaged the pipeline connecting the Black Sea port of Odessa to the Druzhba system.
This is not their first attack, and they continue to attack the energy network,
the Ukrainian President said about Russia. According to information from Naftogaz, Ukraine's state-owned oil and gas company, 60 Russian drones attacked their facilities in northern and eastern Ukraine on Wednesday.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, during her visit to Kyiv on Tuesday—which coincided with the fourth anniversary of the Russian invasion—
asked Ukraine to accelerate the restoration work.
Zelenskyy said the EU is also aware of the Russian attacks and that Ukrainian workers have been injured during the repair work.
However, Budapest and Bratislava believe Kyiv is responsible for the prolonged shutdown. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated yesterday that the outage can be attributed purely to political reasons, and in his view, Ukraine is "preparing for further steps". According to the prime minister, Kyiv is blackmailing Hungary and Slovakia with an "oil blockade".
According to a Ukrainian news portal, Ukraine informed the EU oil coordination meeting in a letter that the pipeline was shut down as a result of Russian military actions, and Kyiv rejects "all ultimatums and political pressure" from certain member states.
On Thursday, Viktor Orbán published an open letter addressed to Volodymyr Zelenskyy on his Facebook page,
in which he accused his Ukrainian counterpart of having "shut down the Druzhba oil pipeline, which is crucial for Hungary's energy supply", and of
having worked for four years to force Hungary into the war between you and Russia.
The Hungarian prime minister added that Hungarians "feel sorry" for the Ukrainian people, but "cannot be blamed for Ukraine finding itself in this situation".
We do not want to finance the fighting and we do not want to pay more for energy. I call on you to immediately open the Druzhba oil pipeline and refrain from further attacks against Hungary's energy security!
Orbán wrote.
For the past few months, it became clearer with each passing day that Viktor Orbán will build his campaign narrative for the coming parliamentary elections around a somewhat new enemy image: Ukraine. However, the pace at which this aggressive campaign intensifies - i.e. the deployment of troops - is still a new level. Security expert András Rácz recently explained that if a genuine external military threat existed, Hungary, being a member of NATO, should invoke Article 4 rather than implement these measures.
Cover photo (for illustration purposes only): Getty Images
