Orbán to send fact-finding committee to Ukraine to assess condition of Friendship oil pipeline

The Hungarian government has set up a fact-finding committee to inspect the Friendship oil pipeline, PM Viktor Orbán announced on Facebook after the Wednesday morning meeting of the Defense Council. The Prime Minister said that the fact-finding committee will be led by State Secretary Gábor Czepek, and they will be tasked with assessing the condition of the Friendship pipeline on site.

"We demand that they be allowed access to the pipeline," he said. Orbán also stated that until the situation is resolved, the Hungarian government will continue to block all EU decisions that are of importance to the Ukrainians.

Orbán noted that the threat of terrorism has increased due to the conflict in the Middle East, and that the Defense Council is constantly meeting. On Wednesday morning, the PM received a report indicating that the army had been deployed to 75 locations to protect the country's energy facilities. According to Orbán, any energy installation that uses a Russian energy source could potentially be a target for Ukrainian sabotage.

While Orbán was making his announcement, it was revealed that Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó had left for Moscow, where he will hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin.

Russia carried out a destructive attack on the Ukrainian section of the Friendship oil pipeline at the end of January. According to the Ukrainian side, the attack had serious technical consequences and the damage will take a long time to repair. The Hungarian government, however, claims that the damage has already been repaired and that oil deliveries are not being resumed due to a political decision by Ukraine. In response, Orbán wrote an open letter to Volodymyr Zelensky, Hungary stopped supplying diesel to Ukraine and plans to block the disbursement of EU relief loans to the country, and has also threatened to restrict electricity exports. On Friday, Viktor Orbán announced the creation of a joint investigation committee into the Friendship pipeline with Slovakia.

On Monday, the Hungarian PM published satellite images which, according to him, prove that there are no technical obstacles to restarting the Friendship oil pipeline, which was damaged in the Russian attack (we discussed these images in more detail in a previous article). Zelensky responded on Tuesday by saying that satellite images cannot show subterranean pipelines, only above-ground storage reservoirs. The Ukrainian Minister of Energy also said that "the reason why the Friendship oil pipeline cannot operate is due to serious internal damage." In an interview with an Italian newspaper, the Ukrainian President said that “the pipeline has been destroyed, a ceasefire is needed for repairs, and this must be made clear to Putin.”

On Tuesday, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán spoke with Vladimir Putin by phone. According to the Kremlin, they discussed current issues of Russian-Hungarian cooperation and the progress made in implementing the agreements reached by Putin and Orbán following their talks in Moscow on 28 November, 2025. The two leaders also discussed the rapidly deteriorating situation in Iran and the Middle East, including the possible consequences for the global energy market.