Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico stated that his country would stop supplying diesel fuel to Ukraine if Kyiv did not restore oil supplies from Russia’s Lukoil group through its territory, according to Euractiv.
If the transit of Russian crude through Ukraine is not renewed in a short time, [Slovak refiner] Slovnaft will not continue in supplies of diesel to Ukraine.
Slovakia and Hungary, the two countries opposing military aid to Ukraine, have been mounting pressure since Kyiv placed Lukoil on a sanctions list last month, preventing the company’s oil from passing to Slovak and Hungarian refineries.
Oil shipments through Ukraine from Russian suppliers other than Lukoil have not been interrupted. Meanwhile, Slovak supplies accounted for a tenth of diesel consumption in Ukraine, Fico stressed.
He added that he had proposed to Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal a technical solution to restore halted oil flows on Friday. However, he did not provide any details about the proposal, but said that it should include several countries.
I welcome reports that relevant trading firms are already thinking about how to implement this technical solution in the shortest possible time.
The dispute revealed the extent to which some EU countries still depend on Russian energy more than two years after the bloc decided to stop importing oil from Moscow following the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic have exemptions to the ban on pipeline oil imports from Russia to ensure time to find alternatives.
