Flows of Russian oil via the Druzhba pipeline to Hungary were temporarily halted on Tuesday after a Ukrainian drone struck the pipeline’s control facility in Russia’s Oryol region, the latest assault by Kyiv on Russian energy exporting infrastructure.
Ukraine military officials said that in the early hours of Tuesday morning they attacked the Stalnoy Kon dispatching, control and storage installations near the city of Oryol that handle domestic and export shipments of crude oil and diesel.
Flows resumed hours later on Tuesday, Hungary’s foreign minister Peter Szijjarto confirmed in a social network post: “The Russian system operator repaired the damage caused by the Ukrainian drone attack, so crude oil transportation resumed to Hungary via the Druzhba line.”
Ukrainian drones have in recent months targeted a number of Russian facilities involved in the continued shipment of oil and gas to some European countries. The Stalnoy Kon installations were also attacked in December last year, with satellite pictures published by Radio Free Europe revealing that one storage tank was destroyed as a result.
Russian oil flows to Poland and Germany via the northern leg of the Druzhba pipeline have been halted since December 2022 when Europe embargoed Russian oil imports in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
