Image: Screenshot: x.com
Mar 5, 2026, 7:23 p.mMar 5, 2026, 7:23 p.m
In the dispute over an EU loan blocked by Hungary, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj is threatening Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. “We hope that a person in the European Union will not block the 90 billion euros and that the Ukrainian fighters will get weapons, otherwise we will give this person’s address to our boys so that they can call him and talk to him in their language,” Zelensky said after an extended government meeting in Kiev. The head of state emphasized that his country had no alternative to the EU loan.
In Hungary there was an immediate reaction to the statement. “These threats and blackmail from Zelensky go far beyond any acceptable limit,” wrote Orban’s press spokesman Zoltan Kovacs on the X platform. Personal emotions have no place in matters like this. Hungary will not allow itself to be intimidated or blackmailed.
Orban blocks credit
Budapest blocks the release of the EU loan due to the suspension of transit via the “Druzhba” (Friendship) oil pipeline. According to Ukrainian information, it was damaged by a Russian drone attack on a fuel depot near the western Ukrainian city of Brody at the end of January. Hungary and neighboring Slovakia, which is also affected by the transit stop, doubt this information and are demanding access for a European Union expert commission.
Zelenskyj denied this, citing Ukrainian experts. “I think our word is enough,” he said and promised that repairs would not take place until mid-April at the earliest. (sda/dpa)