To many Ukrainians and Europeans, the European Union’s unlocking of a €90bn loan to Ukraine on April 23 felt bittersweet because it was tied to a multibillion-euro windfall for Russia. Hungary agreed to lift its veto on the loan after Ukraine repaired the Druzhba pipeline, which crosses Hungarian territory and supplies its refineries with Russian crude.
Landlocked Hungary and Slovakia say they depend on Druzhba as their only crude source. Last year they received about 9.25 million tonnes through it, worth more than $4bn. Ukraine argues even this smaller income for Moscow directly translates into bombs, bullets and lives on the front lines. “In order for us to get some money to survive, the aggressor who is killing us needs to get some money, as well. It seems like it’s a deal where we just cannot win,” said Inna Sovsun, a Ukrainian MP on the energy committee, calling the arrangement “weird” and “immoral.”
The EU banned seaborne Russian crude and refined products in 2023 but carved out a temporary exemption for pipeline crude “until the Council decides otherwise.” Several countries along Druzhba — Austria, Czechia, Germany and Poland — shifted away from its oil, aided by alternative pipelines and oil terminals. For much of Central Europe, however, Druzhba remained critical. “Druzhba was … the backbone of supply for Central Europe,” said John Roberts, a senior partner at energy consultancy Methinks. Losing Druzhba is manageable for many Western European states but far more serious for Hungary and Slovakia.
Hungary might have used the Adria pipeline from Croatia, but the two countries are embroiled in a legal fight over control. Shutting refineries and permanently importing refined products is also costly and would disrupt industries that rely on inputs like naphtha for fertilizers, asphalt and plastics, said Costis Stambolis of the Institute of Energy for Southeast Europe.
When oil began flowing into Slovakia again on April 23, Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico said the pipeline and oil “were used as tools in a geopolitical struggle.” The flow had stopped after Ukraine said a pumping station on Jan. 27 was struck in a Russian air raid. Kyiv said the site was too dangerous for repair crews. Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Fico doubted Ukraine’s account; Orbán wrote to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on March 3 urging enforcement of Ukraine’s obligation to allow oil through. European inspection teams that traveled to Kyiv were not allowed to visit the damaged site.
Orbán reversed his earlier approval of the loan and staged a standoff with Kyiv. Ukraine appears to have timed repairs to the pipeline after Orbán was unseated in a Hungarian general election on April 12, then fixed the damage. “I don’t think there is [anything] we wouldn’t do to prevent the killings of Ukrainians,” Sovsun said when asked whether the standoff had been used to try to remove Orbán.
The relationship between Kyiv and Budapest had been fraught for years. Sovsun accused Hungary of long-term pressure on Ukraine over minority language and education rights since 2016 and of repeatedly finding new pretexts to block Ukraine’s EU integration. In June 2025 Hungary formally blocked Ukrainian accession talks and held a referendum where 95 percent of votes were against EU membership — a vote the opposition called engineered. The European Parliament has criticized Hungary’s democratic backsliding, calling it a “hybrid regime of electoral autocracy” and limiting aspects of its EU role. Hungary’s 2024 EU presidency and Orbán’s outreach to Moscow and Beijing were widely dismissed by other EU and NATO members.
Slovakia under Fico also obstructed Ukraine’s European ties. Fico visited Vladimir Putin in December 2023 and later criticized Ukrainian leaders. He attended Russia’s May 9 Victory Day parade in 2024 and publicly suggested neutrality from NATO and closer relations with Moscow would benefit Slovakia. Fico later vetoed Ukraine’s EU talks in June 2025 and blocked an 18th sanctions package against Russia, though he and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appeared to mend fences during a symbolic meeting in Uzhgorod last September.
Many in Kyiv and across Europe came to see Hungary’s and Slovakia’s positions as collusive with Moscow, using energy dependence as leverage. Some Europeans sympathized with Ukraine’s reluctance to repair the pipeline under those conditions. “The whole idea of saying to Ukraine, ‘Now fix the hole the Russians have made in order that we can persuade Orbán to lift a veto over the €90 billion’, it’s so extraordinary,” said Catherine Fieschi of Carnegie Europe. “Ukraine is right to kick us up the backside,” she added.
Kyiv then shifted from withholding repairs on its territory to actively disrupting Druzhba’s Russian-fed infrastructure, mounting strikes inside Russia. Ukraine’s Security Service claimed responsibility for setting fire to the Kaleykino pumping station in Tatarstan on Feb. 23, a facility that feeds Western Siberian oil into Druzhba. On April 21, the SBU struck the Transneft-Privolga pumping station in Samara, damaging several large crude tanks that supply the pipeline.
Those attacks have had wider effects on Russian exports. Reuters estimated the strikes helped deprive Russia of about 40 percent of its total export capacity and contributed to a half-million barrels-per-day cut in production compared with late 2025. The disruption has global and regional implications beyond Hungary and Slovakia.
The political fallout persists. Hungary’s incoming prime minister, Peter Magyar, has said he will hold another referendum on Ukrainian accession, and there is uncertainty about how other EU members will respond. Fieschi warned that accession negotiations will become tougher and force a reckoning among key EU states: “There’s going to be a really uncomfortable clarification moment.”