Druzhba pipeline restart restores Russian oil flows to Europe, unblocking EU loan for Kyiv

Russian oil has resumed flowing through the Ukrainian stretch of the Druzhba pipeline after a stoppage that lasted months, officials said, clearing the way for Hungary to drop its veto on a €90 billion EU loan Ukraine says it urgently needs.

Since a Russian drone strike damaged the line in western Ukraine and cut off deliveries to Hungary and Slovakia, the Druzhba pipeline has stood at the centre of one of Europe’s most politically sensitive energy disputes.

Hungarian oil group MOL said Ukraine had notified it that shipments of Russian crude were moving again through the pipeline.

“MOL expects the first crude oil shipments following the restart of the Ukrainian section of the pipeline system to arrive in Hungary and Slovakia by tomorrow at the latest,” it said in a statement.

“MOL ‌is also involved in this matter. Contacts ⁠are being maintained through corporate channels. I don’t know the details, because there should have been a request for pumping. … This is, rather, a corporate matter,” Mr Peskov said.

EU loan approval shortly after pumping resumed

An industry source, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to comment publicly, said pumping restarted at 0935 GMT (10.35am Irish time).

Not long after that, EU ambassadors meeting in Brussels approved the loan. The bloc’s 27 member states are expected to give their formal sign-off by tomorrow afternoon.

Ukrainian ‌President Volodymyr Zelensky described the EU move as “the right signal under the current circumstances”.

Writing on X, Mr Zelensky said incentives for Russia to end its war in Ukraine “can arise only when both support for ⁠Ukraine and pressure on Russia are sufficient”.

The EU had reached agreement in principle on the loan last year to help sustain Ukraine’s liquidity through 2026 ‌and 2027, but Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban and the Slovak government had held it up, accusing Ukraine of ⁠delaying repairs to ‌the pipeline, an allegation Kyiv denied.

Hungary and Slovakia both remain heavily reliant on Russian oil, and Mr Orban has consistently signalled support for Russia.

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Change of prime minister in Hungary

Ukraine’s chances of securing the loan had already strengthened after Mr Orban lost Hungary’s parliamentary election on 12 April.

Peter Magyar, leader of the victorious party, said he would no longer stand in the way of ⁠EU funding for Ukraine, although he is not expected to take office until next month.

Druzhba — the Russian word for friendship — has a capacity of ⁠1.2 million to 1.4 million barrels of oil a day, with scope to rise to as much as 2 million barrels a day.

In practice, however, flows had dropped to only a small share of that level because of Western sanctions and repeated disruption caused by drone attacks.

Separately, Germany confirmed that no Kazakh crude would reach its PCK Schwedt refinery, one of the country’s largest, from May, after industry sources said yesterday that Russia was set to halt Kazakhstan’s oil exports via the Druzhba pipeline.