More than four years into it, Ukraine finds itself fighting a multifront war. It is a fight against Russia, obviously and always, but also sometimes against the Trump administration and its envoys and enervations. And sometimes against states in the European Union—either the simply timid, such as Belgium, or the openly hostile, especially Hungary.
All that has come to a head in the past few days and weeks, and the outcome of this five-cornered struggle could decisively shape the start of the war’s fifth year.
More than four years into it, Ukraine finds itself fighting a multifront war. It is a fight against Russia, obviously and always, but also sometimes against the Trump administration and its envoys and enervations. And sometimes against states in the European Union—either the simply timid, such as Belgium, or the openly hostile, especially Hungary.
All that has come to a head in the past few days and weeks, and the outcome of this five-cornered struggle could decisively shape the start of the war’s fifth year.
The big thing that happened earlier this week was a very long-range, Ukrainian double airstrike on the Kaleykino pipeline pumping station in Almetyevsk, located deep in Russia, nearly 1,500 kilometers from Ukraine. That facility is the key element at the very origin of the Druzhba (“Friendship”) oil pipeline that has snaked from Russia to central Europe since Soviet days and continues to dribble fuel to Moscow’s friends in Budapest and Bratislava.
Or it did. To judge by social media, the Ukrainian strikes did a number on the pipeline pumping station, resulting in fires raging for days and supply outages of unknown duration. That will have knock-on effects for downstream customers of that oil, including Hungary and Slovakia.
There is not a lot of independently available information about this purportedly central node of the Russian oil pipeline infrastructure, and the website of the Russian energy company that runs it is, like the facility itself, down for maintenance at the time of writing.
Ukrainian strikes on Russian energy infrastructure are nothing new. The two countries have been trading blows on that front for years: Russia targets civilian electricity and heat as well as water, and Ukraine keeps blowing up the oil refineries that pay for the Kremlin’s war and fuel its remaining main battle tanks. What makes this strike special is that Ukraine has apparently managed to hit two birds with one stone, dealing a blow to both Moscow and Budapest, and seemingly by design.
The backstory of the blowup this week was a blowup just a few days earlier, which began with an explosion a few weeks before.
In late January, Russia struck pumping stations on the southern Druzhba pipeline inside Ukraine, where the pipeline runs the length of the western part of the country on its way to Hungary and Slovakia. That disrupted energy flows farther west, upsetting Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Slovak Premier Robert Fico. Those are the only two European Union countries that still rely on significant amounts of Russian oil (they have a free pass from the Trump administration to do so), so that pipeline is a lifeline.
There are those who believe that Russia deliberately targeted the Druzhba pipeline to create an energy crisis in Hungary ahead of crucial elections there this spring, as a way to galvanize public unrest in one of the few Kremlin-friendly governments in Europe. Hungary and Slovakia believe that Ukraine is slow-walking repairs, though Kyiv does have other airstrike damage to deal with.
So late last week, Orban blocked the already agreed-upon 90 billion euro ($106 billion) EU loan for Ukraine, a crucial financial fillip to allow the war-torn country to pay its bills and survive this year. EU leaders who were in Kyiv for the anniversary of the full-scale Russian invasion this week could not bring a checkbook to the gloomy celebration, thanks to Hungary.
By Monday, Orban was sending letters to the president of the European Council vowing not to take “any” measure favorable to Ukraine until he got his Russian oil restored. And that was precisely when a most unfortunate conflagration began at the key pumping station of that pipeline, which suggests that those oil flows will not be restored any time soon, regardless of the pace of repairs on Ukrainian soil.
There are several interesting things about all of this.
Ukraine, after a few years of war, has shown that it can strike blows not just at its external enemy, Russia, and the energy revenues that fuel its war machine, but also at essentially internal enemies, too.
While Hungary’s (and to a lesser extent, Slovakia’s) veto threat is a clear and present danger to Ukraine’s survival and to the governance of the European Union, the EU also takes it seriously and is increasingly fed up. (Orban, it should be noted, is trailing badly in the polls ahead of the Hungarian elections scheduled for April.)
And finally, the long-range strike capability that Ukraine has developed both through drones and the home-grown Flamingo missile not only give it devastating reach but also free it to a certain extent from undue reliance on Washington for long-range fire. That is an important consideration at a time when the Trump administration, and its main Russia envoy, Steve Witkoff, continue to pressure Kyiv for concessions while coddling Moscow.
Ukraine has fended off threats since four Februarys ago, and 10 before that. The threats have come from the east, and they have come from the west. But as the fifth year of war begins, Kyiv has retained not only 80 percent of its territory, but it has also gained an increasing ability to deal long-range punches—at all of its foes.
