Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on April 21 that specialists had completed repairs on a section of the Druzhba pipeline that Kyiv says was damaged in a Russian military strike.
Zelensky said the pipeline could resume operations, adding that while no one could guarantee Russia would not strike the pipeline’s infrastructure again, Ukrainian specialists had ensured the basic conditions needed to restore the system and its equipment to working order.
He also said he expected the European Union to unblock a 90-billion-euro loan to Ukraine that the EU had previously approved but that Hungary’s former government had blocked.
The Druzhba pipeline has been out of service since January. Ukraine said it was shut down after a Russian drone strike. Hungary and Slovakia suspected Kyiv was dragging its feet on repairs. Ukraine also refused to allow independent European Commission inspectors onto the site in recent weeks, drawing puzzlement from EU member states.
Hungary’s new government does not intend to block the European Union’s decision to extend a 90-billion-euro loan to Ukraine, Tisza party leader Peter Magyar said on April 13, after his party’s victory in Hungary’s parliamentary elections.
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