How strikes on Druzhba are connected to Ukraine's EU integration and where Orbán fits in

Strikes on the Druzhba oil pipeline that halt its operation. A phone call from Donald Trump to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Negotiations between Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders.

Read more about how these seemingly unrelated events are connected in an article by Sergiy Sydorenko., European Pravda's editor: A strike on Druzhba and Trump’s call: all about the threat of dividing Moldova and Ukraine on the path to the EU.

The intersection point of these events is the issue of Ukraine’s EU accession talks. And not only Ukraine’s, but also Moldova’s.

Inside the EU, discussions are underway about letting Moldova move one step ahead of Ukraine by opening just one negotiation cluster for the Moldovans. The idea is that it’s not a big deal, since accession is still far away and Kyiv will soon catch up.

In reality, however, the risks are much greater.

The goal of certain EU players (not only Hungary) is to "repackage" the process entirely: to place Moldova among the "fast-track candidates" and Ukraine among the "frozen candidates," like Serbia.

Moreover, if such a split happens now, it may become one of Russia’s most powerful tools for influencing Ukrainian society, spreading disillusionment and undermining hope for the future.

For Brussels (including European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen personally), Ukraine remains the key state in the enlargement process. Moves that would damage Ukraine do not have support there.

But if talks with Moldova are not opened, this could be a major blow to pro-European forces in the country’s parliamentary elections in autumn 2025.

Blocking the accession process undermines the central platform of Moldova’s ruling PAS party, and for part of the electorate, it may become a reason to lose faith.

This is why Europeans are now looking for a way out of this difficult situation.

There are only a few scenarios: 1 – nothing happens (the EU does not separate Moldova’s accession from Ukraine’s); two – circumventing Hungary’s veto in order to open the first negotiation cluster for both Moldova and Ukraine; 3 – Moldova and Ukraine are separated, but in a "masked" way; 4 – partial opening of talks, simultaneously for both Moldova and Ukraine.

But for a complete picture, we must add scenario 5 – breaking Hungary’s resistance.

For Ukraine, this is the best option.

Its main flaw, however, is the extremely low probability.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has made the issue of opening accession talks politically sensitive and critically important. His electoral campaign is built on opposing Ukraine’s progress toward membership. Will he risk undermining it?

Ukraine is now trying to break this framework and is forced to take extreme measures.

According to European Pravda, Zelenskyy twice (in The Hague and in Washington) raised the issue of the Hungarian veto with Trump; European leaders also joined in. And it had an effect: Trump eventually called Orbán to ask why he was doing this.

This is the right strategy. EuroPravda also advocated it in the spring. But there are suggestions that the situation has gone too far and Orbán can no longer turn back.

Pressure through Trump is not the only lever.

Perhaps an even stronger influence on Orbán now comes from Ukraine’s Drone Forces under the command of Robert Brovdi ("Magyar" – a symbolic coincidence!), who struck the Druzhba oil pipeline pumping station for the second time in several days. The pipeline continues to deliver Russian oil to Hungarian and Slovak refineries.

Until now, Kyiv had refrained from striking Druzhba, primarily to avoid completely destroying relations with Hungary. But Orbán’s new course has left no choice. Even though this will inevitably ricochet onto Ukrainian-Slovak relations as well.