Putin to host Hungary's FM to discuss Budapest-Kyiv rift over Druzhba pipeline
Russian President Vladimir Putin will host Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto in Moscow on March 4 to discuss Budapest's dispute with Kyiv over oil supplies, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.
Szijjarto — a frequent visitor to Russia despite its full-scale invasion of Ukraine — is expected to address the halt in operations on the Ukrainian section of the Druzhba pipeline supplying Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia.
While Kyiv said that the pipeline has been offline since late January due to a Russian strike in western Ukraine, Budapest and Bratislava accused the Ukrainian leadership of intentionally withholding the supplies.
Peskov expressed support for Hungary and Slovakia — whose governments are widely regarded as the most Kremlin-friendly in the EU — in the dispute, accusing Ukraine of "blackmail," according to state news agency TASS.
The minister's visit will come only a day after Putin held a phone call with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban to discuss the U.S.-Iran war and Ukrainian soldiers of Hungarian ethnicity in Russian captivity.
Hungary and Slovakia, both landlocked countries, were the only two EU members still receiving Russian crude via the southern branch of the Druzhba pipeline prior to the suspension. The route accounts for roughly 86–92% of Hungary's crude oil imports and almost the entirety of Slovakia's supply.
Orban's government has deepened energy ties with Moscow throughout the war while repeatedly obstructing EU sanctions on Russia or aid to Ukraine.
Governments of the two countries demanded a joint inspection of the damaged pipeline together with the EU, a request that Kyiv has yet to publicly respond to.
In the meantime, Hungary and Slovakia halted diesel fuel supplies to Ukraine and blocked the 20th package of EU sanctions against Russia. Orban is also blocking a 90-billion-euro ($106 billion) loan to Kyiv, a crucial financial lifeline amid the war.
Experts have linked Orban's increasingly confrontational rhetoric toward Ukraine to the upcoming April parliamentary elections, as the ruling party Fidesz trails the opposition Tisza Party in polls.
"Orban is putting this whole topic (of Ukraine) in the center of his campaign," Peter Kreko, the director of the Political Capital think tank in Budapest, told the Kyiv Independent.
But as the Hungarian public focuses on other issues — namely, living standards, high prices, healthcare, and corruption — "Orban is using more and more drastic tools to raise interest in this topic," the expert added.
Peter Magyar, the leader of Tisza, suggested that he and Orban personally inspect the pipeline together.
"If (Orban) possesses credible information about a real threat, he should stop spreading incitement and panic," and instead brief Magyar and NATO partners on the situation, the opposition leader said on X.
The Tisza Party has condemned Russia's aggression against Ukraine and signaled plans to curb Hungary's reliance on Russian energy. However, it opposes supplying Hungarian weapons to Kyiv and rejects fast-tracking Ukraine’s accession to the European Union.
