FT: EU ambassador not allowed to inspect damage to Druzhba oil pipeline
Katarína Mathernová, EU Ambassador to Ukraine, has requested permission through the Office of the President of Ukraine to inspect the damage to the Druzhba oil pipeline or to send other EU diplomats in her place, but her request was denied.
Sources told the Financial Times that Mathernová's request was turned down on security grounds.
The newspaper claimed that friendly EU countries and the European Commission have been asking Kyiv to permit an inspection of the damaged oil pipeline.
Some sources say that during a visit to Kyiv on 24 February, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa specifically asked the Ukrainian leadership to grant access to the Druzhba pipeline so that they could independently assess the damage, but their request was refused.
A senior EU diplomat said that Kyiv had scored an "own goal" by giving Hungary grounds to block a loan.
"We cannot say if there is damage or not. There are very easy ways to document it and show they are working hard to repair it. They haven't done it," he said.
A senior Ukrainian official close to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy rejected claims that Kyiv is dragging its feet, saying that technical experts from Naftogaz, Ukraine's largest national oil and gas company, have provided their European counterparts with evidence showing that the Druzhba pipeline has suffered serious damage.
Naftogaz CEO Serhii Koretskyi told the Financial Times that a Russian strike set a tank holding 75,000 cubic metres of oil ablaze and it took 10 days to put out the fire.
"Numerous pieces of equipment, power cables, transformers and a leak detection system responsible for pipeline sealing were damaged," he said.
Koretskyi said the strike caused a fire in Europe's largest oil storage tank, which has "a diameter the size of a football field".
Given the scale of the damage, "a full assessment takes time and is expected soon," he added.
UkrTransNafta, a Ukrainian state-owned company, said that "emergency restoration work was being carried out", but continuous Russian attacks are complicating the safety of operations.
A Ukrainian official noted that resuming supplies would necessitate sending repair teams into potentially dangerous areas and redirecting limited resources.
"Why must we repair the pipeline – in times of war and without a ceasefire – which gives oil from Russia to Russia's friends?" he asked.
On 2 March, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy criticised the leaders of Hungary and Slovakia for communicating with Ukraine in a purely pragmatic manner regarding the Druzhba pipeline following Russian strikes, without acknowledging the cost to Ukraine of maintaining oil transit and repairing the pipeline.
Meanwhile, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó claimed that the suspension of oil flows via the Druzhba pipeline amounts to an attack on Hungary, blaming President Zelenskyy.