Hungary and Serbia see it as their task to ensure the security of the TurkStream gas pipeline transiting Russian gas to Europe, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said during talks with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic in Belgrade, APA reports citing TASS.
The Hungarian prime minister recalled that from January 1 Ukraine terminated Russian gas transit to Central and Eastern Europe and TurkStream is the only pipeline feeding this region with Russia gas. "Our task today is to protect the pipeline running via Serbia to Hungary," he said in a video address broadcast by the Hungarian television.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said earlier that the attack on the TurkStream pipeline could be seen as infringement on the sovereignty of the European countries using it. The European Commission also expressed concern following reports about Ukraine’s attack on a compressor station in Russia’s Krasnodar Region.
The Russian Defense Ministry reported on January 13 that Kiev had used nine drones to carry out an attack on a compressor station in Russia’s southern Krasnodar Region in order to disrupt gas supplies via the TurkStream pipeline. However, the compression station continues to operate normally.
Hungary continues to receive gas under long-term contracts with Russia’s gas utility Gazprom via the TurskStream gas pipeline and its branches running via Bulgaria and Serbia. In 2022, the country received 4.8 billion cubic meters of gas via this route. According to the Hungarian data, this figure went up to 5.6 billion cubic meters in 2023, and 7.6 billion in 2024. Hungary’s overall gas imports stand at around nine billion cubic meters a year.
