A group of experts from the European Union will visit the section of the Druzhba pipeline in Ukraine on Wednesday, March 18, which Kyiv says was damaged by a Russian missile, Ukrainian media reported.
The experts are to assess the extent of the damage and the work needed to restore the pipeline, through which Russian oil has not flowed to Slovakia and Hungary since the end of January. Apparently representatives of these two countries are missing from the group.
According to one of the cited sources, the group of experts, consisting of several engineers, is already in Kyiv. The sources added that the plans and logistics of the experts are provided by the EU delegation in Ukraine.
In a joint letter to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, European Council President António Costa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that Ukraine had accepted the EU’s offer of technical assistance and financing to restore oil supplies through Druzhba. The disruption of supplies, according to the leaders and Kyiv, was caused by Russian attacks on the pipeline facility in the city of Brody in the Lviv region on 27 January.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, however, accuse Ukraine of delaying the restoration of operations and of political blackmail. The Slovak Information Service issued a statement in early March that, according to satellite images, there was no damage to the pipeline on 27 January. However, Ukraine claims that it is working to repair the damaged infrastructure.
Von der Leyen and Costa also published a letter from Zelenskyy, in which he stated that repairs to the Druzhba pipeline were nearing completion and the damaged pumping station would be restored within 1.5 months. The heads of the European Council and the European Commission also stressed that their priority was to ensure energy security for all European citizens. In this regard, they intend to “continue to work with stakeholders to find alternative routes for the transit of non-Russian oil to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe,” they said.
Source: TASR
