The Ukrainian president suggested blowing up the Barátság oil pipeline to see if it would destroy Hungarian industry as well

A. FROM.;

Hungary; Ukraine;

2023-05-14 10:09:00

This is in US intelligence reports.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy recently toyed with the idea of ​​blowing up the Barátság oil pipeline, admittedly in order to destroy the Hungarian industry, which is still largely dependent on Russian energy carriers, he aired in his article on Saturday a The Washington Post.

The newspaper writes about this with reference to the US secret service reports that were made public in the latest wave of leaks. According to their testimony, Volodymyr Zelenskyi came up with the idea that also affects Hungary during a meeting in mid-February with Minister of Economic Development Yulia Svridenko, in front of the Deputy Prime Minister.

The Washington Post points out that US intelligence officials add as a comment that Volodymyr Zelensky probably spoke in anger and only threw in the idea of ​​blowing up the Friendship oil pipeline as an empty threat. To put it mildly, the Ukrainian president is not a fan of Viktor Orbán, who called him an opponent in his election victory speech last year, and who uses Putin’s propaganda to refuse aid to Ukraine, which has been under attack for more than a year.

“Although Hungary is nominally part of the Western world, Viktor Orbán is considered to be the most pro-Kremlin political leader in Europe,” notes The Washington Post, according to which US intelligence documents reveal a completely different picture of the Ukrainian president than the mostly measured one. , sometimes appearing before the world with statements revealing pain and repressed emotions.

As part of this different, aggressive picture, Volodymyr Zelensky suggested in a conversation in late January that Ukraine would launch attacks on Russian territory and that Ukrainian military units would occupy Russian border cities. This is contained in a top-secret US intelligence document, and later, at the beginning of February, in front of Chief of Staff Valery Zaluznyi the Ukrainian president already said that he talked about why they don’t have long-range missiles that can reach Russian supply lines deep in Russia.

The Pentagon did not dispute the authenticity of the documents released by The Washington Post.

As for Hungary – we can add – the Ukrainian president may have abandoned the idea of ​​blowing up the Friendship pipeline shortly after he discussed with Viktor Orbán at the EU summit in Brussels on February 9. The Hungarian Prime Minister received an invitation to Kiev from him even then, but there is no news about the organization of his trip. Chancellery Minister Gergely Gulyás usually deflects questions about this by saying that a visit to Kyiv can only be discussed if substantive issues will also be discussed

Viktor Orbán is the only leading EU politician who has not visited the Ukrainian capital since the outbreak of the war on February 24, 2022.

Although the Ukrainian-Hungarian relationship is strained by many issues, such as the restriction of the language rights of the Transcarpathian Hungarian minority, no progress has been made in these matters for a long time.