The EU Ambassador to Ukraine, Katarina Maternova, requested through the Office of the President to inspect the damaged Druzhba pipeline or to send other EU diplomats, but was refused.
Sources Financial Times reported that the refusal was justified by security considerations. Despite this, EU countries friendly to Ukraine and the European Commission insist on access to assess the damage.
During a visit to Kyiv on February 24, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa requested access to the pipeline, but were denied. One senior EU diplomat said:
“We can’t say whether there is damage or not. There are very simple ways to document it and show that they are working hard to repair the damage. They haven’t.”
A Ukrainian official close to President Volodymyr Zelensky dismissed the suggestion of a delay, saying Naftogaz technicians had provided European colleagues with evidence of serious damage to the pipeline.
Naftogaz CEO Serhiy Koretsky said the Russian strike had caused a fire in a 75,000 cubic meter oil tank that took 10 days to put out.
“Numerous pieces of equipment, power cables, transformers and the leak detection system responsible for the tightness of the pipeline were damaged,” he said.
Koretsky added that the strike hit the largest oil reservoir in Europe, “the diameter of which is the size of a football field,” and a full assessment of the damage will take time.
Ukrainian company UkrTransNafta reported emergency repair work, noting that continuous Russian attacks are making safe operation difficult. The Ukrainian official added that to restore supplies, it is necessary to send repair crews to potentially dangerous areas and redirect limited resources.
“Why should we repair a pipeline – in conditions of war and without a truce – that delivers oil from Russia to Russia’s friends?”, – Koretsky asked.
