Orbán, Zelenskyy trade threats over damaged Russian oil pipeline

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán vowed on social media Thursday to “break the Ukrainian oil blockade by force,” promising “no deals, no compromise” in his campaign to restore the flow of Russian crude to his country.

“We will break the oil blockade. We will force the Ukrainians to restart deliveries,” the nationalist-populist leader repeated during a speech in front of Hungary’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry, referencing a damaged pipeline that Ukraine has claimed can’t be fixed.

A thousand kilometers away in Kyiv, as if picking up the gauntlet, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy mocked Orbán’s bluster and conceded the pipeline actually could be fixed within a month and a half. “They [the Russians] are killing us, and we’re supposed to give poor little Orban oil, because without it he won’t win elections,” the Ukraine leader said.

The real reason Ukraine was prepared to repair the pipeline, he added, was to unblock a €90 billion loan from the EU that Hungary has vetoed.

“We hope a certain person in the EU will ⁠not keep blocking the 90 billion … and Ukrainian soldiers will have weapons,” Zelenskyy added.

“Otherwise, we ​will give the address of this person to our armed forces, our guys. Let them call him, speak ​with him in their own language.”

Hungary holds parliamentary elections on April 12, and Orbán faces defeat at the hands of his rival, Péter Magyar of the pro-EU Tisza party, who led him by eight percentage points in polling late last month. Orbán has made Russia’s war on Ukraine one of the pillars of his campaign, accusing neighboring Kyiv of slow-walking repairs to the Druzhba (Friendship) pipeline that used to bring Russian crude to Central Europe, and claiming the political opposition was conspiring with Brussels and Kyiv to deprive his country of access to cheap fuel.

Ukraine has claimed the pipeline was badly damaged by shelling, but is widely seen as reluctant to allow Moscow to continue collecting oil revenues from EU countries.

“We will win. We have political and financial tools, and with these we will compel them as soon as possible to reopen the Friendship oil pipeline,” Orbán promised, adding English subtitles and heroic music to his speech on X.

Veronika Melkozerova contributed to this report.