Slovakia and Hungary threatened to stop supplying electricity to Ukraine

Slovakia will stop emergency supplies of electricity to Ukraine if Kyiv does not resume the transit of Russian oil to the country via the Druzhba pipeline by February 23, Robert Fico said.

“The President of Ukraine refuses to understand our peaceful approach and, since we do not support the war, behaves maliciously towards Slovakia. First, he stopped gas supplies to Slovakia, causing us damage of 500 million euros a year. Now he has stopped oil supplies, causing us further losses and creating logistical difficulties,” Slovak Prime Minister H wrote on social media.

Following Fico, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban made similar demands. He noted that the government is coordinating its actions with the Slovaks and is ready to stop the supply of electricity.

Orban claims to have reliable information about the suitability of the Druzhba pipeline for transporting oil, contrary to Kyiv's claims. The Prime Minister said that Ukraine is doing everything to “sow economic chaos in Hungary,” but Budapest will not allow itself to be blackmailed.

• Oil supplies through the Druzhba pipeline to Hungary and Slovakia ceased on January 27 amid large-scale Russian attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure. On that day, Ukrainian authorities reported a fire that broke out at an oil pumping station in the Lviv region as a result of a Russian drone strike.
• As European Pravda writes , instead of the damaged Druzhba pipeline, Ukraine proposed to the EU to use other elements of its oil transport infrastructure, in particular the Odessa-Brody oil pipeline, to transit oil to Hungary and Slovakia.