EU presses Kyiv for Druzhba pipeline inspections, report says
REUTERS/Bernadett Szabo
The European Commission has insisted that Ukraine should
allow an outside inspection of the damaged Druzhba
oil pipeline which usually carries Russian crude to Hungary and Slovakia, the
Financial Times reported
on March 3, citing unnamed EU officials.
“Ukraine is under pressure to let the EU inspect a damaged pipeline carrying Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia, as the two pro-Kremlin countries accuse Kyiv of overstating the impact of an attack by Moscow — despite what Ukrainian officials say is evidence of extensive destruction,” the report said.
According to five diplomats and EU officials who spoke to the FT, even pro‑Ukrainian governments within the European Union and the European Commission have also asked Ukraine to permit a delegation to inspect the pipeline. Two sources told the newspaper that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen requested access for EU experts during her visit to Kyiv on Feb. 24, the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion. The request, according to the sources, was refused.
As tensions escalated, the EU’s ambassador to Ukraine, Katarina Mathernova, reportedly asked through the presidential office for permission to inspect the damaged pipeline herself or to allow visits by other EU diplomats. Those requests were denied for security reasons, the sources said.
One senior EU diplomat told the FT that Kyiv had "scored an own goal," giving Hungary reason to block a EUR90 billion ($104.5 billion) EU credit for Ukraine.
“We cannot say if there is damage or not,” the diplomat said.
“There are very easy ways to document it and show they are working hard to repair it. They haven’t done it.”
A senior Ukrainian official close to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy rejected suggestions that Kyiv was stalling. He said technical experts from state energy company Naftogaz provided European officials with evidence that the Druzhba pipeline was seriously damaged by a Russian attack in late January.
Naftogaz CEO Sergii Koretskyi told the FT that a Russian strike ignited a fire in a storage tank that held 75,000 cubic meters of oil and that the blaze burned for 10 days. He said numerous pieces of equipment, power cables, transformers, and a leak detection system that helps maintain the pipeline’s integrity were damaged.
"The air attack caused a fire in the biggest oil reservoir in Europe, with a diameter the size of a football field," Koretskyi said. He added that a full damage assessment would take time and would be complete soon.
Satellite images reviewed by the newspaper show clear damage
to the pipeline from the Russian airstrike, but the report said the images
alone are insufficient to assess the full extent of the destruction.
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