The European Union has proposed sending a mission to Ukraine to inspect the Druzhba oil pipeline. This was confirmed on Thursday by a spokesperson for the European Commission, who said Brussels is now waiting for a response from Ukraine. The proposal follows a dispute over the causes and duration of the interruption in Russian oil supplies to Hungary and Slovakia.
Previous requests rejected
The European Commission has previously said it welcomes the idea of a joint inspection and is looking for a format for such a mission. Ukraine has so far argued that there are security risks and that this is a route through which Russian oil still flows into the EU.
Two of the five European diplomats and officials quoted by the British daily Financial Times recently said that European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and European Council president António Costa, during their visit to Kyiv on the fourth anniversary of the Russian invasion, explicitly asked the Ukrainian leadership for access to the Druzhba pipeline so they could independently assess its condition. However, their request was rejected.
‘We cannot say whether there has been damage or not. There are very simple ways to document this and show that they are working hard to fix it. They have not done so,’ said one EU official.
EU awaits Kyiv reply on Druzhba inspection
Ukraine says the outage was caused by a Russian attack on infrastructure on January 27 this year. Kyiv also claims the damage is serious – transformers, power cables and sensors ensuring the tightness of the pipeline were hit.
The doubts of Slovak prime minister Robert Fico and Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán were reinforced by the position of the Slovak Information Service. According to satellite images from February 21 and March 1, there are no visible signs of a Russian attack in the area. Similarly, according to intelligence reports, no repair work is visible there either.
On Tuesday, on the sidelines of the nuclear summit in Paris, the Slovak prime minister met Ursula von der Leyen and discussed Druzhba with her. They agreed that Russian oil supplies should be resumed. He also welcomed the Union’s readiness to provide technical and financial assistance for any repairs.
According to his own words, Fico also showed the European Commission president the aforementioned satellite images.
(Reuters, lud)