Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó and Slovak Economy Minister Denisa Saková have sent a joint letter to Croatian Economy Minister Ante Šušnjar requesting the immediate transit of Russian oil, announced the former on Facebook.
The diplomatic move comes as oil deliveries through the Druzhba pipeline remain halted. The ministers are calling on Croatia to enable the transport of Russian crude oil to Hungary and Slovakia via the Adriatic pipeline without delay, in accordance with European Union regulations.
Both Hungary and Slovakia operate one oil refinery each, both of which are owned by the Hungarian MOL Group. The company also handles crude oil procurement for both facilities through a coordinated process.
The disruption follows a significant incident on 27 January, when Russian forces struck energy infrastructure in the Lviv region, stated Andrii Sybiha, Ukraininan Minister of Foreign Affairs on 12 February. A drone hit a section of the pipeline responsible for supplying Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia. Naftogaz confirmed the strike, and noted only that this was the fifteenth attack on its facilities within a month, according to Ukrinform.
However, in his Facebook post Péter Szijjártó stated “the Ukrainians are not restarting Russian oil deliveries through the Druzhba pipeline due to political reasons”. Péter Szijjártó previously had disputes with the Croatian energy company JANAF as well, and he stated that the Adria crude oil pipeline is not suitable for supplying Hungary and Slovakia with crude oil and that the Croatian energy company wants to “profiteer” off the Hungarians. Croatia and JANAF strongly rejected this as hypocritical, arguing Hungary itself profits from discounted Russian oil imports amid the conflict, and that their fees are reasonable given operational realities.