Hungary and Slovakia want to put pressure on Kiev, which has cut off oil supplies from Russia

Alexey Belogoryev, Research and Development Director of the Institute for Energy and Finance, commented to the Vedomosti newspaper on possible alternatives to oil supplies to Slovakia and Hungary instead of supplies from Russia via the Druzhba oil pipeline.

It is unlikely that the Bulgarian authorities will provide assistance to Hungary at the expense of Russian oil, Alexey Belogoryev says. In his opinion, in the context of "assistance" to Sofia, most likely, we can talk about the supply of Kazakh oil through the Tengiz – Novorossiysk oil pipeline system (Caspian Pipeline Consortium – Vedomosti) and further to the south of Europe.

"But even this will take time. And Azerbaijan is unlikely to be involved in this scheme, Baku has not yet given any estimates," the expert said, talking about the possible role of Azerbaijan, which had previously offered to help solve the problem of the Russian gas transit through Ukraine to the EU after 2024.

The Hungarian authorities give adequate assessments of the threat to energy security in Eastern Europe, Belogoryev noted. According to him, they really have no alternative to Russian oil, and it will take at least six months to rebuild logistics, excluding price increases.

"Russia offered Hungary and Slovakia attractive price conditions, including due to relatively low transport costs, given the ready–made infrastructure and reliability," the expert stressed.