Hungary clings to Russian oil and gas as EU and NATO push to cut
supplies
[October 04, 2025] By
JUSTIN SPIKE
BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — As the European Union pushes to fully sever its
reliance on Russian energy and the administration of U.S. President
Donald Trump urges NATO members to abandon Russian oil, one country's
populist government stands firm.
Hungary and its leader, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, have long argued
Russian energy imports are indispensable for the country's economy and
switching to fossil fuels sourced from elsewhere would cause an
immediate economic collapse.
Orbán, who has long had the friendliest ties to the Kremlin of any EU
leader, has vigorously opposed the bloc's efforts to sanction Moscow
after its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and blasted attempts to
hit Russia's energy revenues that help finance the war.
As the rest of Europe has weaned off Russian energy, Hungary has
maintained, and even increased, its Russian imports, insisting no viable
alternative exists.
But some energy experts — as well as Orbán's critics, who see his
commitment to Russian energy as a symptom of his affinity for President
Vladimir Putin — say the Hungarian leader's position is more about
politics than pipelines.
Orbán warns economy would be ‘on its knees’
Hungary's leaders argue its landlocked geography in the heart of Central
Europe make it dependent on Russian fossil fuels delivered by pipelines
built while Hungary was under Soviet dominance.
With no alternative sources and infrastructure to bring oil and gas to
Hungary, officials say, the country's economy would cease to function
without Russian supplies.
“If Hungary is cut off from Russian oil and natural gas, then
immediately, within a minute, Hungarian economic performance will drop
by 4%,” Orbán told state radio in September. “This would be
catastrophic, the Hungarian economy would be on its knees.”
But László Miklós, a chemical engineer and energy industry analyst, told
The Associated Press there was “no rational explanation” for Orbán's
government's reluctance to seek alternative fuel sources and ample
infrastructure is already in place to supply Hungary with affordable,
non-Russian oil and gas.
“Disconnection from Russian energy in an integrated European market
should not be a problem, all conditions are there. It's the intention
that is missing,” Miklós said.
Cutting off Russian imports
EU countries moved quickly to slash their imports of Russian oil and gas
after Russia invaded Ukraine, instituting an embargo on Russian oil in
2022 and, this year, announcing a proposal to gradually stop the import
of all Russian gas and oil into the bloc by the end of 2027.
Yet as the EU sought to deprive Putin of revenue that helps fuel the
war, it also granted a temporary exemption for supplies delivered by
pipeline to three landlocked countries: the Czech Republic, Hungary and
Slovakia.
That carve out, Miklós said, has allowed the Hungarian government and
the national oil and gas conglomerate MOL to take in major windfall
profits and deliver billions of dollars to Russia's budget.
“People think that Hungary purchases Russian energy for economic
benefit. This is wrong,” said Miklós, who previously served as MOL's
director of corporate relations. "Hungary buys Russian energy because
the Hungarian government wants to help Russia arm itself ... MOL and the
Hungarian government's significant profits are a side effect of that.”
Transitioning to a western route
The EU's push to cut Russia off from energy revenues has sparked fury
from Hungary's leaders, who portray the steps as misguided and
ideologically motivated.
“It is quite astonishing that the leaders of European countries ... are
unable to see that each country’s geographical location determines where
it can purchase energy sources,” Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter
Szijjártó said in a September social media post. “We can dream about
buying gas and oil from places that are not connected by pipelines, but
we cannot heat our homes, boil water or run factories with dreams.”
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A general view of MOL's Danube refinery which produces fuel from
Russian crude oil in Százhalombatta, Hungary, on Sept. 27, 2025. (AP
Photo/Denes Erdos)
 Despite insistence that a lack of
infrastructure precludes a transition to non-Russian energy sources,
other countries in the region, similarly landlocked, have brought
Russian oil first to a trickle, then to a stop.
Earlier this year, leaders of the Czech Republic, which previously
received about half its oil from Russia via the Druzhba pipeline,
celebrated the country's “oil independence day” after doubling the
capacity of an Italian pipeline, the last infrastructural
development necessary to end Russian oil imports.
Hungary, which currently receives the vast majority of its crude
from Russia via the Druzhba pipeline, already has a second pipeline
in place: the Adria, which runs from Croatia's Adriatic Sea.
MOL says it requires around 14 million tons (12.7 million metric
tons) of crude per year, but recent tests on the Adria pipeline
showed it is incapable of reliably delivering such a quantity.
The Croatian oil transport company Janaf disputes that claim, saying
it is prepared to cover both Hungary and neighboring Slovakia's
total annual demands for crude oil.
Miklós said even if Adria were incapable of providing for all of
Hungary's oil needs, it can still play a major role in decreasing
imports from Russia.
“It is possible to bring oil from elsewhere, the Adria pipeline has
been available for several decades,” he said. “If what they say is
true and they need 14 to 15 million tons (per year), it would still
be logical to take 10 million tons from the Adria and bring the rest
on Druzhba.”
The cost of finding alternatives
Hungary's government has portrayed EU efforts to cease Russian
energy imports as an existential threat to a popular,
government-backed household utility reduction program. In May, Orbán
claimed in a video that household electricity bills would double and
gas bills would nearly triple if Russian supplies were eliminated.
Yet according to Borbála Takácsné Tóth, a gas industry research
analyst, the price Hungary pays for Russian gas is based on European
benchmark prices and is not substantially cheaper than what other
countries pay for non-Russian gas.
Tóth, who works at the Regional Centre for Energy Policy Research,
an independent institute affiliated with Corvinus University of
Budapest, said her group's modeling shows breaking with Russian gas
would likely cause “a temporary increase of 1.5 to 2 euros per
megawatt hour," a price hike she called “minimal, below 5%.”
Despite the rhetorical commitment to Russian energy from Hungary's
politicians, national energy company MOL has undertaken investments
in recent years to diversify its supplies and outfit its refineries
in Hungary and Slovakia to process non-Russian crude.
The company said in an email that due to a multiyear, $500 million
investment, "we will be (in) a much better position to have a more
diverse crude oil sourcing capability” by the end of 2026.
Miklós said that despite the Hungarian government's determination to
continue purchasing Russian energy, EU regulations will soon bring
that to an end.
“Things will clearly never be the same again, because the European
Union has learned that, to put it simply, Russia cannot be trusted,”
he said. “It is a matter of political will to break away from
Russian energy sources. There is a small price to pay for this,
which every other European country is paying.”
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