Hungary’s foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, said on Friday that deliveries of Russian crude to Hungary via the Druzhba pipeline had been halted again following what he described as another attack on the network near the Russia–Belarus border. It is the third such disruption he has reported in recent days.
In a statement posted early on 22 August, Szijjártó called the incident “another attack on our country’s energy security” and an attempt to draw Hungary into the war. He added that Budapest would continue to “support peace efforts” and defend national interests. He did not provide technical details of the outage.
The latest claim follows a series of strikes this month against facilities linked to the northern branch of the Soviet-era Druzhba system, which carries Russian crude to Central Europe. On 18 August, oil flows to both Hungary and Slovakia were suspended after an attack on a pumping or transformer station in Russia’s Tambov region. Supplies were restored on the evening of 19–20 August after emergency repairs, according to officials in Budapest and Bratislava.
Ukraine has in recent weeks expanded long-range drone operations against Russian oil infrastructure, including earlier strikes on the Unecha junction in Bryansk region. Kyiv frames these actions as part of a broader effort to degrade Russia’s wartime revenue base. Reuters and other outlets have linked the mid-August Druzhba outage to that campaign.
The European Commission said on 19 August that the reported strike did not affect oil deliveries to Hungary or Slovakia, notwithstanding Budapest’s complaints. That statement came as flows were being brought back online following the initial disruption.
Szijjártó’s latest remarks reprise a dispute with Kyiv that intensified after the 18 August stoppage. At that time, the minister publicly criticised Ukraine and suggested Hungary could cease commercial electricity exports to its neighbour—trade conducted on market terms through regional interconnectors.
Hungary remains heavily reliant on Russian crude delivered by pipeline. Under EU sanctions adopted after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, seaborne imports of Russian oil to most member states are banned, but pipeline supplies to landlocked countries, including Hungary and Slovakia, are exempt. The MOL refinery at Százhalombatta is configured to process the Urals blend, although the company has worked on technical adaptations to diversify inputs. During the 18–20 August interruption, MOL said fuel production was not disrupted.
The Druzhba network, built in the 1960s, has multiple branches. The northern route crosses from Russia into Belarus, then towards Poland and, via a spur at Unecha, south-west to Ukraine and on to Slovakia and Hungary. This configuration creates vulnerabilities at junctions and pumping stations on Russian territory that are geographically closer to the EU supply chain than Russia’s refineries or Black Sea export terminals. The mid-August incidents targeted infrastructure within Russia, rather than any assets in Ukraine or the EU.
Budapest’s criticism has drawn rebuttals from Ukrainian officials, who argue that Russia’s invasion is the source of risk and that Moscow is an unreliable supplier. Slovak operator Transpetrol confirmed the 18 August suspension on its side of the border but said it had no details about the origin of the outage; the Slovak economy minister later confirmed that flows had returned to standard levels.
As of Friday morning, Szijjártó’s account suggested a renewed stoppage affecting Hungary. Independent confirmation of fresh system-wide impacts was not immediately available, and no timeframe for restoration was given. In the previous episode, service resumed within roughly 24–48 hours. The Commission’s position on the latest claim had not changed at the time of writing.
For Budapest, the recurring outages underscore the strategic risk of depending on a single pipeline corridor during a period of intensified strikes on Russian energy infrastructure. For Kyiv, they indicate that operations against oil logistics inside Russia can trigger rapid downstream effects in EU markets without breaching Ukrainian territory.
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