Hungary has banned a Ukrainian commander from entering the country and the Schengen zone after strikes on the Druzhba oil pipeline. The move was announced by Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó in a Facebook video on 28 August.

Hungary frames attacks against the pipeline in Russia as a threat to its sovereignty

In his FB video, Szijjártó said Ukraine had launched several strikes against the Druzhba oil pipeline, which he called vital for his country’s energy supply, adding that Hungary considers “every single attack against our energy security as an attack committed against our sovereignty.“

“Without the Druzhba pipeline, Hungary cannot be supplied with oil,” he claimed, adding, “Ukraine knows this precisely. Ukraine is fully aware that the pipeline is indispensable for Hungary’s secure energy supply.”

The minister stated that the strikes harmed Hungary and Slovakia more than Russia, without addressing why, in the fourth year of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Hungary remains fully dependent on Russian oil despite available alternatives, or that Hungary’s payments for this oil in effect bankroll Moscow’s war machine against Ukraine.

“Ukraine knows very well that the attacks against the Druzhba oil pipeline harm Hungary and, of course, Slovakia much more than Russia,” Szijjártó said.

He described the latest strike as “extremely serious,” adding that “restoration work took so long that we almost had to use strategic, or emergency, reserves.”

Ban on Ukrainian commander

Szijjártó announced that Hungary’s response would be to bar the commander of the Ukrainian unit behind the strike.

“We have therefore made the decision that the commander of the military unit which carried out the most recent extremely serious attacks against the Druzhba oil pipeline will be banned from Hungary and from the entire Schengen area,” he said. “This Ukrainian citizen will not be able to enter Hungary or the Schengen zone for the coming years.”

The Hungarian Prime Minister did not name the Ukrainian military officer targeted by the ban. The most likely candidate is Robert “Madyar” Brovdi, commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces and an ethnic Hungarian.

He had previously claimed responsibility for the latest strike on the Druzhba pipeline, adding the 1956 Hungarian resistance slogan to his post: “Ruszkik haza!” (“Russians, go home!”).

Ukrainian long-range drones struck the Druzhba’s pumping stations on 19 and 21 August.