Ukrainian drone and rocket strikes on the Druzhba pipeline in Russia last Friday disrupted Hungary’s oil supply from Russia.
Right after last week’s attack on the pipeline, Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party went on the offensive rhetorically.
Leading Hungarian politicians called the bombing of Russia’s energy infrastructure “a military attack against the European Union” and “a threat to Europe’s energy security.”
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban even got his “great friend” Donald Trump to chime in, with the American president saying he was “very angry” about the strikes.
Although oil began flowing through the pipeline again on Thursday, relations between Budapest and Kyiv remain tense.
Entry ban for Ukrainian commander
In a further escalation, Hungary on Thursday issued an entry ban against Robert Brovdi, the Ukrainian commander who coordinated and supervised the attack on the Russian pipeline. Brovdi is an ethnic Hungarian Ukrainian citizen.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy responded to the news by saying it was another attempt “to shift the blame for the ongoing war onto Ukraine.”
Earlier, Hungary’s Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto had claimed on X that “Ukraine knows very well […] that such strikes harm us far more than Russia.” In a separate post, he also wrote that “the latest attack on our energy security is outrageous and unacceptable.”
Is Ukraine targeting Hungary?
Although the Hungarian government has suggested otherwise, experts who spoke to DW say it is implausible that the strikes intended to target Hungary.
“The key here is to undermine Russia’s economic flows, and the main economic flow is through fossil fuel,” Amanda Paul, an analyst with the Brussels-based European Policy Centre (EPC) told DW.
A report by the International Energy Agency found that Russia earned $192 billion (€164 billion) from exporting crude oil and oil product exports in 2024.
According to Paul, Ukraine seeks to weaken Russia’s war economy by cutting off this revenue stream amid Russian advances and wavering US backing.
“Ukraine is not waging war against Hungary. It is defending itself against the Russian aggressor, and if some of the blowback is on Hungary, then so be it,” she said.
Is Hungary’s energy security at risk?
Hungary’s response to the attacks has been so robust because the country is almost entirely dependent on Russian oil imports. Most of this oil comes through the Druzhba pipeline, which has been hit three times within the space of a week.
In a joint letter from Hungary and Slovakia, which also relies heavily on Russian oil, Hungary has even called on the European Commission to take action against Ukraine, claiming it was endangering safe energy supplies.
Similarly, the director of Hungarian oil and gas giant MOL, Zsolt Hernadi, warned of a possible chain reaction: “If oil refineries in [Slovakia and Hungary] have to stop, or run at reduced capacity, that will affect all of Central Europe,” he told Hungarian media.
The EU said on Thursday that it was monitoring the situation, but that it did not consider the bloc’s energy security to be at risk.
EU accession: Hungary’s veto worsens relations
Energy issues are not the only thing straining bilateral relations between Budapest and Kyiv: Hungary’s Fidesz-led coalition is currently the only government blocking Kyiv’s EU-accession talks and has made this a cornerstone of its message.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has done little to dispel the idea that the pipeline bombings could be related to Hungary’s politics.
“We always supported the friendship between Ukraine and Hungary. And now the existence of the friendship depends on what the position of Hungary is,” the president said during a press conference on August 24, in a play of words on the pipeline’s name: Druzhba means friendship in Russian and Ukrainian.
Hungary’s risky dependence on Russia
Ukraine’s strikes may not be aimed at Hungary, but they certainly expose how vulnerable Viktor Orban has made his country by continuing to rely on Russian oil.
While Hungary and Slovakia were given sanction exemptions by the EU, they have made no effort to reduce their dependency on Russian oil.
“Hungary increased its Russian crude reliance from 61% pre-invasion to 86% in 2024, and Slovakia remained almost 100% dependent,” according to a report by the Center for the Study of Democracy dated May 2025.
Even economically, this reliance is becoming increasingly difficult to justify, as the price of Russian oil has gone up, Tamas Pletser, a Budapest-based oil and gas equity analyst told DW.
“There is still a cost benefit, but it has significantly decreased,” he said.
Pletser warns that with the EU pushing to phase-out Russian fossil fuels by 2027 — coupled with the fact that Ukraine is increasing its capacity to build and use new types of missile that can strike energy infrastructure — “imports have become very risky, which is why I think there is a need to diversify,” he told DW.
Pletser believes Hungary’s oil industry is capable of such diversification, but says there is at present no political will in Hungary to break away from Russian oil.
Why does Ukraine not just shut down Druzhba?
If Ukraine wanted to stop the flow of Russian oil to Europe at any cost, it could do so by shutting down the Druzhba pipeline running through its territory — at least in theory.
But once the pipeline crosses from Belarus into Ukraine, the oil flowing through it legally belongs to the Hungarian company MOL, Pletser explained.
“So, shutting it down would be a serious escalation, and I don’t think the Ukrainians want to confront Hungary like that,” he said, adding that Ukraine earns roughly $200 million a year in transit fees — a considerable source of income for the war-torn country.
Pletser went on to say that targeting pumping stations and other energy infrastructure on Russian soil avoids such a breach of contract and may be Ukraine’s best shot at halting the invasion.
“If Russia is facing energy shortages, that’s the only thing that can stop their military and force Putin to the negotiating table,” he said.
Edited by: Aingeal Flanagan
