Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has told his European allies that pressure to restart the Druzhba pipeline is like “blackmail”. TASR informs about this on Sunday, according to a report by the AFP agency. Ukraine says the Soviet-era Druzhba pipeline, which runs through its territory and transports oil to Hungary and Slovakia, was damaged by a Russian attack in late January and could take up to six weeks to repair.
Budapest and Bratislava threatened to block EU aid if Kyiv did not quickly put the pipeline back into operation, while the European Commission proposed setting up a delegation to examine the pipeline, AFP recalls. “I will say it openly: I am against it. But when I get the condition that Ukraine will not receive weapons, then, forgive me, I am powerless in this matter, I told our friends in Europe that this is called blackmail,” Zelenskyy said in a statement published on Sunday.
