The oil flow from the Russian Druzhba pipeline was renewed late on August 19.

“The flow of oil to Slovakia is standard at the moment,” the country’s Minister of Economy Denisa Saková (Hlas) was quoted as saying by the Slovak press agency TASR.  

“In the nearest days, we will have clearer information about whether there will be adjustments to the imports this month and whether the damage to the infrastructure outside of the Slovak territory will have an impact on the overall monthly volume of imports,” she added.

As bne IntelliNews covered earlier this week, the Druzhba oil flow to Slovakia and Hungary was halted, and Saková stated that “a transformer station in the Druzhba path was damaged “and that it is “already a second incident in the course of the past week.”

Saková also said that Slovakia is unaffected by the halt, noting that her Ministry is prepared to deal with long-term drops, and that the country has strategic oil reserves and that Saková’s Ministry is working on diversifying its oil resources.

The Ukrainian army confirmed this week that it carried out an attack on the transformation station in the Russian Tambovska region.

The damaged transformation station also caused a spat between the Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Peter Szijjártó, who pointed to the Ukrainian army attack, and his Ukrainian counterpart Andrii Sybiha.

“Peter, it is Russia, not Ukraine, who began this war and refuses to end it,” Sybiha wrote on his X social media profile in response to Szijjártó, adding that “Hungary has been told for years that Moscow is an unreliable partner” and that “despite this, Hungary has made every effort to maintain it's [energy] reliance on Russia.”

Separately, Szijjártó later also confirmed that the Druzhba oil flow to Hungary has been renewed.