Ukraine is under pressure to let the European Union inspect a damaged pipeline carrying Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia, as the two pro-Kremlin countries accuse Kyiv of overstating the impact of an attack by Moscow – despite what Ukrainian officials say is evidence of extensive destruction.
Ukraine says it needs time to repair the Druzhba pipeline and has provided evidence of harm from a Russian air strike in January, but Hungary and Slovakia claim that Kyiv intentionally shut it off.
Hungary has delayed the approval of an EU loan for Ukraine until it is reopened, and proposed to send a fact-finding mission to Ukraine, together with Slovakia.
Now some pro-Ukraine EU governments and the European Commission are also asking Kyiv to allow a visit to prove that it is trying to restore oil flows, according to five EU diplomats and officials.
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Two of them said that European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and Antonio Costa, president of the European Council, had specifically asked Ukraine’s leadership during their visit to Kyiv on the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion for access to the Druzhba pipeline to assess the damage independently, but were denied. The commission did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The dispute has become more urgent as energy prices soared after US and Israeli military action against Iran disrupted global oil and gas supplies. And it has intensified as Kyiv continues to refuse access to European inspectors.
One senior EU diplomat said Kyiv had scored an “own goal” by giving Hungary an excuse to block the loan.
“We cannot say if there is damage or not. There are very easy ways to document it and show they are working hard to repair it. They haven’t done it,” they said.
A senior Ukrainian official close to president Volodymyr Zelenskiy pushed back against suggestions that Kyiv was dragging its feet, saying technicians from Ukraine’s state energy company Naftogaz had given European counterparts evidence that Druzhba had been badly damaged.
Sergii Koretskyi, chief executive of Naftogaz, told the Financial Times the Russian strike caused a storage tank holding 75,000 cubic metres of oil to ignite a fire “that took 10 days to extinguish”.
“Numerous pieces of equipment, power cables, transformers and a leak detection system responsible for pipeline sealing were damaged,” he said. “The air attack caused a fire in the biggest oil reservoir in Europe, with a diameter the size of a football field.”
Given the magnitude of the damage, he said, “a full assessment takes time and is expected soon”. Ukraine’s state-owned UkrTransNafta said at the time of the attack that “emergency restoration work” was being carried out, but that Russia’s relentless attacks made safe operations difficult.
The Ukrainian official said restarting flows would require dispatching repair crews into potentially dangerous areas and diverting limited resources.
“Why must we repair the pipeline – in times of war and without a ceasefire – which gives oil from Russia to Russia’s friends?” the official asked.
Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban has delayed the approval of a €90 billion EU aid package for Kyiv over the dispute, as he intensifies his anti-Ukraine stance before an election that polls suggest he may lose.
Zelenskiy accused Orban of using the issue to bolster his re-election campaign and indicated in an interview with the Financial Times on Monday that he wasn’t inclined to ease the situation for his Hungarian counterpart.
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“Now you are blocking €90 billion ... money we need for weapons, for survival,” Ukraine’s leader said.
As tensions deepened, EU ambassador to Ukraine Katarína Mathernová requested through Zelenskiy’s office to inspect the damaged pipeline or send other EU diplomats, according to two people briefed on the matter. The request was rejected on security grounds, the people said.
Orban claimed on Monday that he had satellite evidence showing Druzhba was not damaged enough to render it inoperable and said that he would maintain “countermeasures” until Ukraine restarts oil shipments.
Satellite images viewed by the Financial Times clearly showed damage to the pipeline site from the Russian air strike. But the extent of the destruction could not be assessed by the images alone.
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Slovakia prime minister Robert Fico said his and Orban’s offer of a “fact-finding mission” to establish the extent of the damage was turned down.
The Ukrainian official insisted that Zelenskiy had invited Fico to discuss the issue directly in Kyiv, but the invitation was declined. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2026
