Russian President Vladimir Putin will on Wednesday meet Hungary’s Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto for talks in the Kremlin on oil supplies, Moscow announced.
Hungary is the EU’s most Russia-friendly member and has kept up ties with Putin and Moscow despite the four-year-long Ukraine offensive.
Putin had on Tuesday spoken with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, where the pair discussed the fate of Hungarian citizens captured by Russia while fighting for Ukraine and the fallout of the war in the Middle East on global energy markets.
Budapest relies on Russian oil and is currently in a standoff with Kyiv over a halt to supplies through Ukraine due to damage to the Druzhba pipeline.
Ukraine said Russia attacked the pipeline and repairs are being held up due to the threat of another strike.
Hungary and Slovakia -- which also receives shipments from Russia through the pipeline -- accuse Kyiv of delaying the repairs in an attempt to cut them off from Russian supplies.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said buyers of Russian oil were “facing blackmail” and accused Kyiv of “the deliberate blocking of deliveries through the Druzhba pipeline”.