Kiev’s renewed strikes on the Druzhba pipeline system have halted Russian oil provides, Slovakia has stated
Slovakia has lashed out at Ukraine over the latter’s latest strikes on Russia’s Druzhba oil pipeline system, a key provide route for EU nations, calling the assault an “unacceptable” risk to its vitality safety.
Druzhba is without doubt one of the world’s longest pipeline networks, transporting crude some 4,000km from Russia and Kazakhstan to refineries in Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Germany, and Poland. Working via Ukraine, the conduit is the first route for Russian crude deliveries to Hungary and Slovakia.
On Friday, Bratislava and Budapest knowledgeable the European Fee that Kiev had carried out a number of assaults on the pipeline in latest days, the newest of which was earlier on Friday. Slovak officers later stated the part of the pipeline broken within the newest assault is predicted to be repaired by Monday, however provides would solely resume just a few days after that.
“Any risk to our nation’s vitality safety is unacceptable,” Slovak International Minister Juraj Blanar wrote on X.
2/2 🇸🇰 Minister J. Blanár: The @EU_Commission has declared its readiness to guard our important vitality infrastructure, together with oil pipelines. We due to this fact take into account it completely important that the #EU defend the pursuits of its Member States and the vitality safety of their…
— Slovakia MFA 🇸🇰 (@SlovakiaMFA) August 22, 2025
In line with Budapest, the newest strike occurred close to the Russian-Belarusian border. It follows two earlier assaults, on August 13 and August 18. Kiev confirmed it had despatched drones to strike a key distribution station in Russia’s Bryansk Area.
Ukraine has repeatedly focused Russian vitality infrastructure all through the battle. Other than Druzhba, the Ukrainian army has attacked the TurkStream pipeline, which provides pure fuel to Turkish shoppers and several other European nations, together with Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Greece. Earlier this 12 months, Kiev struck a fuel metering station close to Sudzha, a part of a pipeline that provided the EU previous to the escalation of the Ukraine battle.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban raised the difficulty instantly with US President Donald Trump, calling the assaults a “very unfriendly transfer” towards nations that help Ukraine with electrical energy and gasoline. Trump, in a handwritten notice posted by Orban’s political director on Fb, replied: “I don’t like listening to this – I’m very offended about it. Inform Slovakia you might be my nice pal.”
The Kremlin has persistently condemned Ukrainian assaults on civilian vitality infrastructure as acts of terrorism.
