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KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Cash-strapped Ukraine has secured a crucial European Union loan that will provide a vital lifeline to sustain its wartime efforts this year.The 90 billion-euro ($106 billion) package was formally approved on Thursday, days after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that the Ukrainian section of the Druzhba pipeline had been repaired and the flow of oil would resume to Slovakia and Hungary, conditions linked to the release of the funds.Approval had been held up for months amid political friction inside the 27-nation EU, including resistance from outgoing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, widely seen as the Kremlin’s...

Druzhba means ‘friendship’, which is nowhere to be found these days. Today, Ukraine restarted the flow of Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia through the Druzhba pipeline that it kept shut to further boost the election of Péter Magyar. In exchange for that, the EU was finally able to approve the long-awaited 90 billion Euro loan to Kiev – although it must be noted that both Budapest and Bratislava ‘opted-out’, meaning no Hungarian or Slovak money is part of it. But there isn’t time to celebrate because, also today, Russia announced that it will close a major oil pipeline into...

Ukraine has struck the Druzhba pipeline carrying Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia, even as widening attacks indicating the war is spreading to the Eurasian landmass. “The Druzhba oil pipeline is taking a rest,” crowed Robert “Magyar” Brovdi, Ukraine’s drone chief, on August 18. “Greetings from the Birds of the Unmanned Systems Forces.” The strike, the second in less than a week, took out the 4,000km (2,500-mile) pipeline, bringing to an indefinite halt oil flows which had been supplying Central Europe via Ukraine and Belarus since the early 1960s. The language was tongue-in-cheek, but the destruction of the Nikolskoye oil...

KYIV/PRAGUE (Reuters) -Ukraine will continue to meet its obligations to transit Russian oil to Europe, a presidential aide said on Friday after earlier suggesting it could halt supplies via the Druzhba pipeline next year.Comments by Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak, reported by local media on Friday, had suggested flows of Russian oil may stop from January, but he later said Ukraine supported EU efforts to diversify its oil supply and would not break contracts running to 2029."Ukraine has fulfilled and will fulfill its contractual obligations in full until the scheduled completion date... because it concerns our bilateral relations with European...

WARSAW (Reuters) – Germany said on Wednesday it was receiving less oil but still had enough supplies after Poland found a leak in the Druzhba pipeline that takes crude from Russia to Europe, which Warsaw said may have resulted from an accident rather than sabotage…. …Drone footage showed a black slick of oil from the underground pipeline spreading across farmland at the spill site, surrounded by fire engines and other emergency teams. “The security of supplies in Germany is currently guaranteed,” an Economy Ministry spokesman told Reuters. He added that “the refineries in Schwedt and Leona are still receiving crude...

21:02 - 05.11.2004Experts From Bulgaria, Greece and Russia Agree on Controversial Oil Pipe Project SOFIA (bnn)- Experts from Bulgaria, Greece and Russia have ironed out differences on a joint project to pipe Russian oil from the Black Sea to the Aegean bypassing the Bosporus strait in Turkey, Bulgaria’s Ministry of Regional Development said Friday.

For a decade Washington has been backing the Turkish and Azerbaihan governments to steer the export of Caspian region crude oil away from Russia. Russia's newest riposte has been to ally the Russian and Iranian oil industries, and open up the shortest, cheapest, and most lucrative oil route of all, southwards out of the Caspian to Iran. The economics of the southward route are the latest blow for the Bush Administration, as it tries to redraw the geography of the Caucasus on an anti-Russian map. But for oil exporters and shippers in the Caspian, President George Bush's jawboning looks to...