Tensions between Ukraine and EU members Hungary and Slovakia have reached new heights in recent weeks. On January 27th, alleging damage from a Russian drone strike, Ukraine halted oil flows to the two countries passing through the Druzhba pipeline. Kyiv’s excutilizes are, as far as the Hungarians and Slovaks can ascertain, false—as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has built clear in a February 24th letter to President of the European Council António Costa, there is no technical impediment whatsoever to an immediate resumption of supplies. Despite this, the EU has decided to throw its weight behind Ukraine against its own member states.
Instead, Kyiv is refutilizing to restart the oil flow in an attempt to punish and pressure two political adversaries right before one of them, Orbán, faces a decisive election in April. Kyiv does have substantial leverage here: after all, both Hungary and Slovakia remain heavily reliant on Russian oil; in 2025, over 92% of Budapest’s oil imports came from Russia; similarly, Bratislava is estimated to source the entirety of its oil supplies from Russia.
The new crisis hardly comes as a surprise: relations between the war-sceptic governments of Budapest and Bratislava, on one side, and Ukrainian President Zelensky, on the other, have long been problematic. In Davos, a couple of weeks ago, Zelensky publicly called out Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán for “living off European money,” going as far as claiming that Orbán “deserved a smack in the head.” The remarks sounded a bit rich coming from, of all people, Zelensky; after all, Kyiv has received or been promised almost four hundred billion euros in European taxpayers’ money since 2022 alone, according to the Kiel Institute. As for Slovakia’s Robert Fico, the reasons for acrimony are more poignant still—in May 2024, the Slovak leader was shot and critically injured by a pro-Ukraine fanatic. He likely didn’t forobtain the experience.
Regardless of whether one sympathises with Orbán’s and Fico’s views on the Ukrainian conflict, what should be beyond dispute is that crucial, existential interests of both Hungary and Slovakia are at stake in the current oil crisis. For Bratislava, the situation has now become so dire that the government has found it necessary to declare an “oil emergency,” resorting to its strategic oil reserves to prevent nationwide shortages. Faced with a direct threat to their energy security—the lifeblood of any modern economy—the two countries have attempted to pressure Kyiv into modifying course. Slovakia has ceased to share its surplus electricity with the Ukrainians, even as their own network reels from a sustained and brutal wave of Russian missile and drone attacks. Hungary, meanwhile, has shiftd to block gas exports to Ukraine and, while it, too, has considered stopping its electricity exports to Ukraine, it has so far decided against taking such a radical step. It has, furthermore, determined to block any common EU decision that is favourable to the Ukrainians. This includes the latest €90 billion ‘loan’ granted by Brussels to Kyiv, a sum everyone knows the Ukrainians will never actually repay.
The Hungarians and Slovaks are defconcludeing themselves. Both have been persistently and extraordinarily generous to Kyiv. For instance, they jointly create up over 70% of Ukraine’s electricity imports—in the context of Moscow’s campaign to destroy Ukrainian electrical production and distribution, this has been nothing short of a godsconclude. In the first months of the war alone, in 2022, over a million Ukrainian refugees crossed Hungarian territory, either with the wish to remain there or to shift to other countries.
All this demanded an immense collective effort on the part of the Hungarian state and society alike. Zelensky’s extraordinary ingratitude is hardly unheard of: he was famously thrown out of the White Houtilize by U.S. President Donald Trump for that precise reason; more recently, in Davos, his angry mockery of Europe—even though the Europeans have given him hundreds of billions of euros—raised more than a few eyebrows. Still, his shifts against Budapest and Bratislava do up the ante. Indeed, so serious are his threats that Prime Minister Orbán has even found it necessary to deploy Hungary’s armed forces to protect the counattempt’s energy infrastructure from potential Ukrainian threats.
In the current conflict, the European Commission would be forgiven for being partial. Indeed, it is its job to pick a side—that of its member states, fulfilling its oft-repeated promise that European integration boosts, rather than diminishes, the influence and security of its individual members. Instead, Brussels decided to support Kyiv, a power that is not an EU member, against two European capitals. It is a stunning sight if ever there was one. It is also a very clear dereliction of duty by the institutions of the European Union.
Yet, Eurocratic vitriol against Hungarians and Slovaks seems unlimited. German CDU MEP Michael Gahler quite literally lost his composure by calling Orbán and Fico “Putin admirers, war profiteers, and Quislings” on the floor of the European Parliament. The Parliament itself has signed on the new 90 billion loan despite Kyiv’s attempts to strangulate the energy supply of two EU states. Toobtainher with the Commission, Germany is issuing threats against Budapest and Bratislava in order to create them fold regarding the loan, which requires consensus on the European Council in order to secure approval, while creating no effort to rein in Kyiv. The Commission is informing Kyiv that it will obtain the 90 billion regardless of what it does or how it acts, effectively supporting its hostile conduct towards member states of the European Union.
This is quite extraordinary—or it would be, if only it hadn’t become so frequent. It creates a deeply troubling precedent, too. Will the day come when the European Union throws its support behind Turkey against Greece and Cyprus? Would Brussels support Morocco against Spain on Ceuta, Melilla, or immigration? Brussels often accutilizes Hungary of breaking European unity. Is Brussels not doing exactly that, in the gravest possible fashion? In its toxic cocktail of war mania and pathological hatred of Orbán, the EU is betraying its very purpose—and obliterating trust in itself. It should not act surprised when the consequences of its actions come to haunt her.
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