<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Zelensky stressed that restoring the flow of crude oil through Ukraine would mean lifting economic sanctions on Moscow, and rejected EU pressure, calling it blackmail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He told reporters in Kiev today, March 15, that restoring the flow of Russian crude oil through Ukraine to the European Union (EU) would be like lifting economic sanctions on Moscow, the BBC reports today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Either we sell Russian oil or we don't. Why is it (the EU) forcing me to restore Druzhba? How is this different from lifting sanctions on the Russians? Why can we in one case tell the United States that we oppose lifting sanctions, while on the other hand we force Ukraine to continue transiting oil through the Druzhba oil and gas pipeline?\" Zelensky asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Zelensky said that there is no need for anyone from the European Union to accuse him of blocking something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"If we have decided to resume supplies of Russian oil, then I want them to know that I am against it. And there is no need to accuse me of blocking anything. I am not blocking it. I say it openly, I am against it. But if conditions are set for me that Ukraine will not receive weapons, then, excuse me, I am powerless in this matter. I told our friends in Europe that this is called blackmail,\" Zelensky concluded.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ukraine says the Soviet-era Druzhba pipeline was damaged in Russian air strikes in January and has not yet been repaired, while Hungary has previously accused Kiev authorities of deliberately failing to repair the pipeline and has requested permission for its inspectors to check the situation on the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hungary depends on Russian energy and has blocked new European Union sanctions on Moscow, as well as a 90 billion euro loan to Kiev, until the Druzhba oil pipeline, which runs part of its route through Ukraine, is reopened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The EU urged Zelensky to quickly repair the pipeline and asked him to allow inspectors to conduct an on-site inspection and assess the damage.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused European allies of trying to blackmail him into reopening the Druzhba pipeline, which transports Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":897378,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[282,2498,301],"naslovna":[],"class_list":["post-938832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-svijet","tag-eu","tag-kijev","tag-volodimir-zelenski"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gradski.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gradski.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gradski.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gradski.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gradski.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=938832"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gradski.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":938835,"href":"https:\/\/gradski.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938832\/revisions\/938835"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gradski.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/897378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gradski.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=938832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gradski.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=938832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gradski.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=938832"},{"taxonomy":"naslovna","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gradski.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naslovna?post=938832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}