The intrigue as to whether Ukraine will resume transit of Russian oil through the Druzhba oil pipeline to Hungary and Slovakia persisted until the last moment. On the evening of April 21, President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukraine had repaired the pipeline and said that it now expects Brussels to respond, namely by approving a €90bn military loan. At a meeting of EU envoys in Brussels on April 22, the two countries did not provide written objections to the military loan, which meant an automatic lifting of the “veto”.
Recall, Kiev stopped oil transit via Druzhba on January 27, citing damage to the pipeline as a result of a Russian strike. Budapest and Bratislava claimed that the pipeline was in working condition and that Kiev’s decision was nothing more than an element of a political game before the parliamentary elections in Hungary. EU officials and experts were not able to assess whose version was correct: they were not allowed to inspect the pipeline. However, after the victory of the opposition Tisza party led by Péter Magyar in Hungary, the pipeline suddenly started working.
The ties of “Friendship” remain in question
However, the launch of the pipeline was jeopardized at the last moment: immediately after Zelensky’s statement that Druzhba had been brought into working condition, Ukrainian media reported about the AFU attack on the critical node of the pipeline – the Samara line production and dispatch station. According to the Ukrainian media, the drone raid damaged five large oil tanks, which led to a fire at the facility. The Russian side did not report the attack.
Nevertheless, the launch of Druzhba went according to plan: “Ukrtransneft” informed Hungarian operator MOL about the start of receiving crude oil from Belarus at noon on April 22 local time. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fitzo confirmed in a video message that the country expects the first oil deliveries no later than Thursday morning and that he will not lift his veto of the 20th package of sanctions against Russia before then.
“The trust between Bratislava and Kiev has been seriously undermined by this process. I fear that Ukraine could find a way to stop supplies again at any moment once it gets what it wants from Brussels. We are watching closely as two processes go hand in hand: unblocking the €90 billion loan and restarting the pipe. We must be ready for the alternative, in which the flow of oil stops again a few days after the money transfer,” the Slovak prime minister added.
