Suspension of Lukoil transit is not “blackmail”

KIEV (Reuters) – Ukraine’s decision to suspend Russia’s Lukoil oil transit to Hungary and Slovakia is in line with Kyiv’s sanctions against the company and has nothing to do with blackmail, Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podoliak told Reuters on Friday, rejecting a Hungarian statement.

Last month, Kyiv imposed sanctions on the transit of Russian crude oil through the Druzhba pipeline, sparking fears of supply shortages in Hungary and Slovakia.

On Monday, Hungary and Slovakia filed their complaint with the European Commission, asking it to apply an association agreement that they say means Ukraine cannot block oil transit.

An adviser to the Hungarian Prime Minister accused Ukraine on Friday of blackmailing Hungary and Slovakia by stopping their oil deliveries.

“The situation with the suspension of Russian oil transit through the Druzhba pipeline to Hungary and Slovakia has nothing to do with blackmail in the Ukrainian sense,” Podoliak said in a written comment.

“And certainly Hungary and Slovakia are not acting as real peacekeepers and are not insisting on peace and justice, but only on concessions to Russia,” he noted.

Podolyak accused neighboring countries of “violating the line” of the European Union, which supports Kiev in the war with Russia, and recommended that they call on the Kremlin to stop attacks on Ukrainian energy and transit channels.

Ukraine’s energy sector has been subjected to constant Russian missile and drone attacks for months and has lost half of its generation capacity, leading to massive outages across the country.

(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk and Tom Balmforth; Editing by Alex Richardson, Elaine Hardcastle)