Orban was late with the disconnection of Ukraine from gas through Hungary: flows continue

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban explained how Hungary is going to stop gas supplies to Ukraine through its territory. Experts believe that the Hungarian authorities should have reacted earlier to the termination of the transit of Russian oil, since now Budapest's response will not give the expected result.

Suspension of Hungarian gas supplies to Ukraine will be phased in, the Hungarian Prime Minister said in a video on Facebook❶.

The head of the Hungarian government clarified what will happen to the unsent volumes.

"The gas that will remain in Hungary will be stored here," Viktor Orban said.

The day before, he said that until Ukraine resumes the transit of Russian oil, it will not receive gas through Hungary.

According to the Hungarian GTS operator FGSZ, deliveries to Ukraine continues on March 25 and the capacity of the flow during the day is more than 300 thousand cubic meters per hour. The Ukrainian operator, meanwhile, reports that deliveries of 8.3 million cubic meters are planned for these gas days (until 6.00 on March 26).

Previously, Hungary was the main destination for gas imports to Ukraine because of the low cost of transportation. However, this year the situation has changed somewhat. According to the "Ukrainian GTS Operator", Poland has become the main supplier. In total, Ukrainian companies have received 1.9 billion cubic meters since January 1, and Poland accounted for 49% (0.93 billion cubic meters). Hungary is next — almost 41% or 781 million cubic meters.

Theoretically, Ukrainian companies can redirect supplies through Slovakia. However, it is also suffering from the shutdown of Russian oil supplies and its gas transportation tariffs are higher.

"Now this measure of Hungary will not have much impact, given the weather factor, the availability of other import routes, sufficiently high gas reserves of Ukrainian UGS and generally low sensitivity of the Ukrainian regime to issues of ensuring uninterrupted energy supply to the economy and the bulk of the population. Theoretically, it could have affected in the midst of cold weather in early February, and that is not a fact," said Alexey Grivach, Deputy director of the National Energy Security Fund (NWF).

In addition, it is not entirely clear how the Hungarian authorities will stop deliveries, since in the EU they are obliged to comply with the rules of the EU free market and the matter can only concern bilateral agreements. Thus, Slovakia stops providing Ukraine with emergency assistance in electricity, as the local operator notified Ukrenergo. At the same time, commercial deliveries will continue.

As EADaily reported, in January Ukraine stopped the transit of Russian oil via the Druzhba oil pipeline to Slovakia and Hungary, motivated by a Russian drone strike on an object in Brody. In Budapest and Bratislava, Kiev's statements were questioned, but the latter did not allow the EU inspection to check the damaged facility on the spot.

In Budapest, it was stated that Zelensky launched a campaign against Viktor Orban in order to play along with the opposition Tisa party on the eve of the upcoming parliamentary elections in April.

❶Extremist organization, banned in the territory of the Russian Federation