Oil restart remains weeks away despite political pressure
Ukraine has accepted the European Union’s offer of technical and financial support to restore flows through the damaged Druzhba pipeline, but the move has done little to ease the wider political dispute surrounding Russian crude deliveries to Hungary and Slovakia. Kyiv made clear that although repair work is advancing, any restart of supplies is still not imminent, leaving one of the region’s most sensitive energy routes caught between war damage, diplomatic pressure and competing political narratives.
In a letter released on Tuesday, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said repairs were nearing completion and that the affected pumping station could be restored in about one and a half months, provided there are no further Russian attacks. That timeline means the return of oil flows remains weeks away, not days, even as some European governments push for faster progress and accuse Kyiv of dragging out the process.
The Druzhba disruption has become more than a technical problem. It now sits at the center of a dispute involving EU financing for Ukraine, sanctions policy toward Russia and the continuing willingness of Hungary and Slovakia to maintain energy ties with Moscow despite the wider war.
Pipeline outage has evolved into a broader diplomatic clash
Russian oil deliveries to Hungary and Slovakia through Druzhba have been suspended since late January, when Ukraine said Russian strikes hit key pipeline equipment in the country’s west. Kyiv maintains that the interruption is the direct result of war damage and insists accusations of intentional obstruction are baseless. Hungary and Slovakia, however, have continued to argue that Ukraine is delaying the return of flows for political reasons.
The disagreement has sharpened because the two countries remain the only EU members still heavily dependent on Russian crude through this route. Their governments have resisted the broader European strategy of cutting remaining Russian energy ties and have repeatedly used the pipeline issue to challenge Kyiv and the EU institutions backing it.
That is why Ukraine’s acceptance of European assistance, while important, did not produce an immediate political thaw. Hungary’s foreign minister dismissed the development as a political game rather than a genuine breakthrough, signaling that Budapest is not ready to treat technical progress alone as enough to close the argument.
Hungary links oil flows to money and sanctions
The standoff has already spilled into wider EU decision-making. Hungary has continued to block a 90 billion euro European Union loan for Ukraine and has also held up new sanctions on Russia while Druzhba remains offline. Prime Minister Viktor Orban, facing a difficult election challenge after 16 years in power, has made the linkage explicit, arguing that if there is no oil, there will be no money.
That position has turned an infrastructure repair issue into leverage inside the European bloc. For Budapest, the restoration of crude supplies is not simply about energy security. It is also a political tool in its broader contest with Brussels and Kyiv. Slovakia has aligned with Hungary on the need to restart flows, though the dispute has been driven most visibly by the Hungarian government’s use of the issue in EU negotiations.
Ukraine, for its part, has tried to reframe the debate by emphasizing that it is not refusing transit, but repairing a route damaged by Russian attacks. In his letter, Zelenskiy said claims that Ukraine is deliberately obstructing oil transportation are unfounded, a formulation aimed at countering the growing narrative from Budapest that Kyiv is using energy as a bargaining weapon.
EU sees restoration as urgent, but phaseout still stands
European Council President Antonio Costa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen responded by stressing that the resumption of Druzhba flows is important for market stability and consistent with Ukraine’s contractual obligations. Their intervention reflects a balancing act that Brussels is trying to manage carefully. On one hand, the EU wants the damaged route restored to avoid disruption for member states still receiving Russian oil. On the other, it remains committed to phasing out all remaining Russian oil imports by the end of 2027.
That longer-term strategy is another source of friction. Hungary and Slovakia oppose the planned phaseout, but they do not have the power to stop it. As a result, the present battle over Druzhba has become a preview of a larger conflict over how quickly central Europe can be pushed away from Russian energy and how much political resistance that process will generate.
The immediate issue is whether repairs can be completed without further attacks and whether technical progress can lower the temperature before EU leaders meet later this week. But the larger question runs deeper. Even if oil begins flowing again in several weeks, the pipeline row has already exposed the limits of unity inside the bloc, the continued political utility of Russian energy for Hungary and the extent to which Ukraine’s war damage is now shaping disputes far beyond the battlefield.