As Ukraine emerges battered but unbowed from the third and most terrible winter of the war against Russia, its people have proved that they can survive and fight on even as Vladimir Putin’s troops destroy swathes of their country’s heating, transport and electricity infrastructure. But one thing that Ukraine cannot survive without is money – and that, the European Union seems critically unable to provide. 

On Thursday, a European Union summit once again failed to remove a veto by Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, on a €90 billion (£78 billion) tranche of funding for Ukraine. That cash, in the form of a controversial loan raised collectively by the EU, was negotiated last year as an emergency stopgap designed to keep Kyiv’s war economy going in the absence of funding from the United States. Even Orban was brought, reluctantly, on board. Without the EU’s funding lifeline, Kyiv is expected to run out of money to pay its public servants, buy military equipment and fund its army by the beginning of summer. 

But after the Druzhba oil pipeline that carries Russian oil via Ukraine to Hungary and Slovakia was damaged by a Russian drone attack in January, Orban withdrew his support for the EU loan. Orban claimed that the Ukrainians were dragging their feet on repairing the pipeline and blamed Volodymyr Zelensky personally for delays in getting Russian oil supplies to Hungary flowing again. 

The EU has vowed that the continent will wean itself off Russian oil and gas entirely by the end of 2027. Yet Brussels now........

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