Zelensky says Druzhba oil pipeline repairs cannot be rushed as Hungary escalates dispute
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said repairs to the Druzhba pipeline that carries Russian oil to Eastern Europe “are not that fast,” pushing back on European Union pressure and Hungarian protests as a supply outage to Hungary and Slovakia entered a fourth week.
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Shipments of Russian crude to both countries have been halted since Jan. 27, when Kyiv says a Russian strike hit pipeline equipment in western Ukraine. Slovakia and Hungary have blamed Ukraine for the prolonged stoppage. Zelensky said Russian strikes destroyed the pipeline linking the Black Sea port of Odesa with Druzhba, complicating repair work.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, visiting Kyiv on Tuesday to mark the fourth anniversary of the start of the war between Russia and Ukraine, said the EU was asking Ukraine to speed up repairs. “They advise us to repair it, but they know that there have already been attacks on Druzhba,” Zelensky told reporters. “Our people were injured so that it would work.”
Orban orders troops to guard energy sites amid accusations
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban accused Ukraine of planning to disrupt Hungary’s energy system and said he had ordered soldiers and equipment deployed to safeguard critical infrastructure. The move further escalates a dispute over the Druzhba outage that has cut deliveries to refineries in Hungary and Slovakia.
“I see that Ukraine is preparing further actions to disrupt the operation of the Hungarian energy system,” Orban said in a video posted to his Facebook page. “Therefore, I have ordered the reinforcement of protection for critical energy infrastructure. This means that we will deploy soldiers and equipment necessary to repel attacks near key energy facilities.” The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Orban’s accusation.
Hungary and Slovakia have maintained ties with Moscow and have split with EU partners over military support for Ukraine. On Monday, Hungary maintained its veto on new EU sanctions on Russia and a large EU loan for Ukraine amid the oil-dispute tensions. Orban has cast Hungary’s April 12 parliamentary election as a choice between “war or peace,” saying his opponents would draw the country into the conflict next door.
Russian officials: Seven dead in strike on fertilizer plant
Separately, Russian officials said a Ukrainian drone attack on a fertilizer plant in Russia’s western Smolensk region killed seven people and wounded 10. The plant, outside the town of Dorogobuzh around 290 kilometers from Ukraine’s border, was shown in unverified images on social media engulfed in flames with thick smoke rising into the night.
Smolensk region governor Vasily Anokhin said on Telegram that the target was PJSC Dorogobuzh, a civilian producer of nitrogen fertilizers. Russia’s Investigative Committee said later that seven people were killed, updating an earlier toll, in what would be one of the deadliest attacks on a Russian industrial site since the start of the war. Russian authorities said Ukraine launched at least 30 drones equipped with explosive devices, causing significant damage.
Energy uncertainty lingers for EU’s eastern flank
For now, there is no public timeline for restoring flows through Druzhba’s branch serving Hungary and Slovakia. Kyiv maintains the outage stems from Russian strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, while Budapest and Bratislava fault Ukraine for the continued stoppage. The EU is urging faster repairs even as Ukraine says technicians are working under fire.
The standoff underscores how the war continues to reverberate through Europe’s energy systems, pitting battlefield realities against political pressure and sharpening divisions inside the EU over how to support Ukraine while securing reliable supplies.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
