BUDAPEST, Hungary — Hungary will seek to resolve a dispute with Ukraine over the transfer of Russian oil by September to avoid a potential energy crisis, an aid to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said on Friday,
Ukraine last month adopted sanctions against Lukoil, Russia’s largest non-state firm. Hungary receives most of its crude from Russia via the Druzhba or “Friendship” pipeline which runs into Central Europe through Belarus and Ukraine, about half of which it receives from Lukoil. On Friday, Orbán’s chief of staff, Gergely Gulyás, told a news conference that Ukraine was “inexplicably blackmailing Hungary and Slovakia by cutting off oil supplies.” He suggested that the blocking of Lukoil crude was in response to the two Central European countries’ ”pro-peace stance.