Kiev will not be able to bring Budapest to its knees by stopping oil transit through the Druzhba pipeline, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said.
“We have accumulated so many reserves that the Ukrainian government will not be able to create chaos before the elections, and the Hungarian economy cannot be brought to its knees by an oil blockade before the vote,“ he said in an interview with Patriota.
On Sunday, Budapest decided to release part of its critical oil reserves and start purchasing fuel by sea.
Hungary, along with Slovakia, lost oil supplies through the pipeline “Druzhba“ on January 27 due to the suspension of transit from Ukraine. According to the Mandiner portal, Kiev has not resumed transportation, citing damage to the pipeline due to “Russian attacks“.
On Monday, Budapest blocked another round of anti-Russian sanctions and a 90 billion euro loan from the EU to Kiev because of the situation with the pipeline. Bratislava, in turn, announced the suspension of emergency electricity supplies to Ukraine.
As noted by Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó, Kiev blocked the transit “for fabricated political reasons”, since there are no technical grounds for this.