Crude oil flows from Russia to Hungary and Slovakia via the Druzhba pipeline suffered a forced halt on Monday, officials from both countries confirmed, after a Ukrainian drone strike crippled a vital transformer station.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto stated Monday “this latest strike against our energy security is outrageous and unacceptable” – and informed his government and the public that Russian technicians are working to restore an “essential” transformer station which was targeted.
Szijjarto further wrote in a post on X that “this latest strike against our energy security is outrageous and unacceptable.”
Hungary continues to rely heavily on Russian oil, even after most European nations have imposed sanctions and sought alternative sources.
Hungary’s Russian energy supply is primarily delivered through the Druzhba pipeline, which passes through Belarus and Ukraine before reaching Hungary and Slovakia.
Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha responded sarcastically and mockingly, expressing that Hungary should direct any grievances to Moscow rather than Kiev.
The Viktor Orban government has long clashed with Ukrainian officials, as well as some of Kiev’s most hawkish supporters in the West and Baltic states. Hungary has remained a thorn in the EU’s side on the Russia issue.
Orban had in Spring of 2022, near the start of the war, bluntly made clear during an interview with a public national broadcaster that a total Russian oil ban it would be like “dropping a nuclear bomb on the Hungarian economy”.
The outspoken Hungarian leader had described at the time that Hungary “would need four to five years to revamp its energy system and become independent from Russian oil.”
As Euronews has also noted, “while other EU states can bring additional crude barrels through their ports, Hungary, a landlocked country, lacks that alternative path.”
Renewed diplomatic tit-for-tat outrage and frustration being expressed and ongoing…
Hungary’s FM fires back
Russia has never interrupted Hungary’s oil supply — Ukraine did
And now Kiev tells Budapest to ‘complain to Moscow’? https://t.co/ZVpIiVsJ54 pic.twitter.com/JALnwNVLLb
— RT (@RT_com) August 18, 2025
Slovakia has meanwhile also confirmed the Monday stoppage of oil flow via the Druzhba pipeline but said it had no information about the cause.
Previously, on August 13, Ukraine’s military claimed to have hit the Uniecha oil pumping station in Russia’s Bryansk region with drones, also resulting in brief shutdown.
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