During his trip to Central Europe, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio held a joint press conference with Prime Minister Robert Fico of Slovakia in Bratislava, Slovakia, on Sunday, 15 February. At the press event, PM Fico levelled heavy accusations against the Zelenskyy administration in Ukraine.
He claimed that Kyiv is delaying the restart of the Druzhba pipeline, which transports crude oil from Russia to Europe, to pressure the Hungarian government into dropping its opposition to Ukraine’s accession to the European Union.
‘We have information that it [the pipeline] should have been fixed,’ the Slovak Prime Minister told reporters, as quoted by Reuters. ‘I perceive what is happening around oil today as political blackmail towards Hungary due to the uncompromising stance of Hungary on Ukraine’s EU membership…If Hungary agrees to their EU membership, perhaps oil supplies arrive,’ he added.
Kyiv announced that the pipeline was stopping its transport on 27 January, citing a Russian attack as the cause. The flow has not resumed since.
‘I perceive what is happening around oil today as political blackmail towards Hungary due to the uncompromising stance of Hungary on Ukraine’s EU membership’— PM Fico
At the press conference with Secretary Rubio, Prime Minister Fico also shared his view on Ukraine’s potential EU membership. He stated that his government would agree to back Ukraine’s European integration if Kyiv fulfilled all the necessary preconditions. He emphasized that candidate countries Serbia, Albania, and Montenegro were all much better prepared for accession than Ukraine.
Returning to the topic of the Druzhba Pipeline, PM Fico made the ominous statement: ‘There were so many lies from both sides that I cannot say for sure who bombed or destroyed part of the oil infrastructure.’
Slovakia and Hungary are the only two EU Member States that have not been willing to completely cease Russian oil imports, as doing so would result in massive utility price hikes for consumers in the two Central European nations.
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