What's fueling recent tension between Ukraine and Hungary?

Ukrainian drone and rocket strikes on the Druzhba pipeline in Russia last Friday disrupted Hungary's oil supply from Russia.

Right after last week's attack on the pipeline, Hungary's ruling Fidesz party went on the offensive rhetorically.

Leading Hungarian politicians called the bombing of Russia's energy infrastructure "a military attack against the European Union" and "a threat to Europe's energy security."


Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban even got his "great friend" Donald Trump to chime in, with the American president saying he was "very angry" about the strikes.

Although oil began flowing through the pipeline again on Thursday, relations between Budapest and Kyiv remain tense.

Entry ban for Ukrainian commander

In a further escalation, Hungary on Thursday issued an entry ban against Robert Brovdi, the Ukrainian commander who coordinated and supervised the attack on the Russian pipeline. Brovdi is an ethnic Hungarian Ukrainian citizen.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy responded to the news by saying it was another attempt "to shift the blame for the ongoing war onto Ukraine."

Earlier, Hungary's Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto had claimed on X that "Ukraine knows very well [...] that such strikes harm us far more than Russia." In a separate post, he also wrote that "the latest attack on our energy security is outrageous and unacceptable."

Is Ukraine targeting Hungary?

Although the Hungarian government has suggested otherwise, experts who spoke to DW say it is implausible that the strikes intended to target Hungary.

"The key here is to undermine Russia's economic flows, and the main economic flow is through fossil fuel," Amanda Paul, an analyst with the Brussels-based European Policy Centre (EPC) told DW.

A report by the International Energy Agency found that Russia earned $192 billion (€164 billion) from exporting crude oil and oil product exports in 2024.

According to Paul, Ukraine seeks to weaken Russia's war economy by cutting off this revenue stream amid Russian advances and wavering US backing.

"Ukraine is not waging war against Hungary. It is defending itself against the Russian aggressor, and if some of the blowback is on Hungary, then so be it," she said.

Is Hungary's energy security at risk?

Hungary's response to the attacks has been so robust because the country is almost entirely dependent on Russian oil imports. Most of this oil comes through the Druzhba pipeline, which has been hit three times within the space of a week.

In a joint letter from Hungary and Slovakia, which also relies heavily on Russian oil, Hungary has even called on the European Commission to take action against Ukraine, claiming it was endangering safe energy supplies.

Similarly, the director of Hungarian oil and gas giant MOL, Zsolt Hernadi, warned of a possible chain reaction: "If oil refineries in [Slovakia and Hungary] have to stop, or run at reduced capacity, that will affect all of Central Europe," he told Hungarian media.

The EU said on Thursday that it was monitoring the situation, but that it did not consider the bloc's energy security to be at risk.

EU accession: Hungary's veto worsens relations

Energy issues are not the only thing straining bilateral relations between Budapest and Kyiv: Hungary's Fidesz-led coalition is currently the only government blocking Kyiv's EU-accession talks and has made this a cornerstone of its message.

Meanwhile, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has done little to dispel the idea that the pipeline bombings could be related to Hungary's politics.