Hungary and Slovakia no longer receive Russian crude oil after Ukrainian attack on Druzhba pipeline

Russian oil supplies to Hungary via the Drujba pipeline were suspended on Tuesday following a massive Ukrainian drone attack targeting the Moscow region, which also damaged a pipeline station, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said, according to the MTI news agency, quoted by Agerpres.

The Hungarian official announced shortly afterwards that he had been informed by Russia that the necessary repairs had been carried out in the meantime and oil transport via the Drujba pipeline was being restored.

“If the Drujba pipeline becomes inoperable, the oil supply to Hungary and Slovakia will become practically impossible,” Peter Szijjarto noted. “The European Commission has guaranteed that there will be no attacks on the infrastructure that supplies Hungary with energy,” but “unfortunately this is not the first time that the European Commission’s guarantees have been violated” by Ukraine, the Hungarian minister added.

Slovakia also reported, through its company Transpetrol, that the flow of Russian oil through the Druzhba pipeline was stopped on Tuesday and expects it to resume later in the evening.

Hungary and Slovakia have tense relations with Kiev, both as a result of the refusal of Prime Ministers Viktor Orban and Robert Fico to support Ukraine in its war with Russia, and because of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s decision to stop the transit of Russian gas through pipelines on Ukrainian territory from January this year.

The Ukrainian army announced on Tuesday morning that it had hit a refinery in a major drone attack carried out on the region of the Russian capital Moscow, resulting in at least three civilian deaths, an attack through which Ukraine is trying to get Russia to accept an air truce, but the Kremlin believes that the drone salvo launched on Moscow risks torpedoing efforts to initiate peace negotiations.

According to the Ukrainian General Staff, a factory in the Russian Oryol region, which provides technological assistance for the Druzhba oil pipeline, was also hit.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, 337 drones were shot down in this attack, the largest carried out by either side since the start of the war triggered by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.