Hungarian foreign minister accuses Zelenskyy of "attack" on Hungary

Hungary's Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has said that the lack of oil transportation via the Druzhba pipeline is an attack on Hungary carried out by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

As reported by Hungarian newspaper Magyar Nemzet, Szijjarto complained about threats to maritime trade in connection with war in the Middle East.

"That is why it is important for us to have an old, well-functioning, reliable, inexpensive oil pipeline with high capacity that is able to fully supply us, namely the Druzhba oil pipeline," he said.

He repeated that oil is not reaching Hungary via the Druzhba oil pipeline due to political reasons.

"And that this political reason is that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the President of Ukraine, is not allowing oil transit to resume via the Druzhba oil pipeline because of a decision taken by the Brussels-Berlin-Kyiv axis that was agreed with the Tisza party. This is an attack on Hungary carried out by Zelenskyy and the Tisza party is Zelenskyy's accomplice in this attack," Szijjarto said.

Notably, this accusation has come shortly before parliamentary elections in Hungary, at which the Tisza party, according to polls, has a chance to defeat Viktor Orbán's Fidesz party.

The Hungarian minister said that the "Berlin-Brussels-Kyiv axis" wants to bring the price of petrol to HUF 1,000 (EUR 2.60) in Hungary before elections.

"It is the Berlin-Brussels-Kyiv axis that took this decision in the interests of the Tisza party to help it come to power," he said.

On 2 March, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán spoke about satellite images that allegedly prove there are no obstacles to Druzhba's operation.

Zelenskyy, commenting on this, said that not all details can be seen from satellite images.

Orbán said after the outbreak of war in the Middle East that it is now even more important for him to receive Russian oil via the Druzhba oil pipeline.