The dispute over an EU loan blocked by Hungary threatens Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. “We hope that a person in the European Union will not block the 90 billion euros and the Ukrainian fighters will get weapons, otherwise we will give this person’s address to our guys so that they call him and talk to him in their language,” Zelensky said after an extended government meeting in Kiev. The head of state emphasized that his country had no alternative to the EU loan.

Hungary reacts angrily to Zelensky’s threat

In Hungary there was an immediate reaction to the statement. “These threats and blackmail from Zelenskyy go far beyond any acceptable limit,” Orbán’s press spokesman Zoltán Kovács wrote on Platform X. Personal emotions have no place in matters like this. Hungary will not allow itself to be intimidated or blackmailed.

Viktor Orbán himself also posted a video on his

Druzhba pipeline: dispute over damaged oil route

Budapest blocks the release of the EU loan due to the suspension of transit via the oil pipeline “Druzhba” (Friendship). According to Ukrainian information, this was damaged by a Russian drone attack at the end of January on a fuel depot near the western Ukrainian city of Brody. Hungary and neighboring Slovakia, which was also affected by the transit stop, doubt this information and are demanding access for a European Union expert commission.

Zelenskyj denied this, citing Ukrainian experts. “I think our word is enough,” he said and promised that repairs would not take place until mid-April at the earliest.