{"id":361703,"date":"2025-08-21T09:20:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T09:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/361703\/"},"modified":"2025-08-21T09:20:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T09:20:11","slug":"ukrainian-strikes-on-russian-pipeline-risk-entangling-eu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/361703\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukrainian strikes on Russian pipeline risk entangling EU"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe Druzhba oil pipeline is taking a rest,\u201d boasted<\/a> Major Robert \u201cMadyar\u201d Brovdi, commander of Ukraine\u2019s drone forces, on Monday. He was referring to a Ukrainian drone strike on the Nikolskoye pumping station in Russia\u2019s Tambov region. It temporarily halted oil flows through the Druzhba pipeline, the last major artery supplying Russian oil to Moscow\u2019s only remaining buyers in the EU: Hungary and Slovakia.<\/p>\n

Hungarian Foreign Minister P\u00e9ter Szijj\u00e1rt\u00f3 denounced<\/a> the strike as \u201coutrageous and unacceptable\u201d, calling it an assault on Hungary\u2019s energy security and sovereignty. He accused Kyiv and Brussels of trying to drag Hungary into the conflict, reiterating that \u201cthis is not our war\u201d and that Budapest intends to stay out of it. Although repairs have since restored the flow of oil, the incident raises several troubling questions.<\/p>\n

The first is what Ukraine hopes to achieve. One reading is that Kyiv is trying to strengthen its bargaining position in the current negotiations. Yet the attacks also betray a growing sense of desperation: unable to reverse its fortunes on the battlefield, Ukraine is turning to strikes on infrastructure.<\/p>\n

The risks, however, are clear. Such tactics invite Russian retaliation against Ukraine\u2019s own energy system while further alienating EU member states \u2014 above all Hungary and Slovakia \u2014 which are already opposed to Western military and financial support for Kyiv.<\/p>\n

More broadly, the strikes highlight the widening geopolitical scope of the conflict. The Druzhba incident is only the latest in a series of energy-related attacks. On 2 August, the Central Asia-Center gas pipeline in Russia was shut down after explosions in the Volgograd region. The pipeline carries natural gas from Turkmenistan to Russia and is thought to supply key facilities in Russia\u2019s military-industrial base. Just four days later, Russia struck a metering station on the Trans-Balkan pipeline near the Romanian border. Used by Russia before the war, Ukraine\u2019s Naftogaz operated the route for the first time earlier this month to import small volumes of Azerbaijani gas.<\/p>\n

Aura Sabadus at the Center for European Policy Analysis points out<\/a> that these tit-for-tat strikes are \u201carguably part of a much wider and sophisticated geopolitical battle that is now being fought out from Central Asia in the east to the heart of Europe in the west\u201d. Azerbaijan has shifted towards Ukraine and away from Russia in recent months. In this sense, the Ukrainian strike on the Central Asia-Center pipeline was likely aimed at limiting Russian access to Central Asian gas and thereby preventing any rapprochement with Azerbaijan. Similarly, the attack on the Druzhba pipeline can be seen as an attempt to force Hungary and Slovakia\u2019s energy decoupling from Russia.<\/p>\n

However you understand them, these operations make clear a sobering reality: thanks to advances in drone warfare, such attacks are relatively easy to carry out. Even if a political settlement were to end open hostilities, the low cost and high accessibility of drone technology mean that energy infrastructure across the region would remain highly vulnerable \u2014 not only to state actors, but also to rogue groups determined to keep the conflict alive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThe Druzhba oil pipeline is taking a rest,\u201d boasted Major Robert \u201cMadyar\u201d Brovdi, commander of Ukraine\u2019s drone forces,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":361704,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[7503,32302,35,2000,299,5187,1699,2190,6084,11187,980,332,9022,657,771],"class_list":{"0":"post-361703","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-azerbaijan","9":"tag-drone-strikes","10":"tag-energy","11":"tag-eu","12":"tag-europe","13":"tag-european","14":"tag-european-union","15":"tag-hungary","16":"tag-infrastructure","17":"tag-non-classifiu00e9e","18":"tag-optional","19":"tag-russia","20":"tag-russia-ukraine","21":"tag-ukraine","22":"tag-war"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115066019718280795","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/361704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}