Magyar and Fico Warn Ukraine on Druzhba Pipeline 'Blackmail'

Péter Magyar and Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico spoke by phone on April 21, jointly pressing Ukrainian President Zelensky to resume oil transit through the Druzhba pipeline, which Ukraine has disrupted. Magyar called the disruption 'blackmail' and warned that Hungary and Slovakia would not support the EU's €90 billion Ukraine aid package unless energy supplies were restored. The call also covered the rights of ethnic Hungarians living in Slovakia — a long-standing bilateral tension Magyar signaled he would raise with Bratislava — and marked his first substantive foreign policy phone diplomacy as prime minister-elect.