Ukrainian forces said they struck the Nikolskoye pumping station on Russia’s Druzhba pipeline in the early hours of 18 August, damaging electrical equipment and halting crude flows through the southern branch that feeds Hungary and Slovakia. Budapest confirmed the stoppage, with Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto noting that deliveries of Russian oil to Hungary ceased immediately after the attack. The Druzhba link supplies the bulk of Hungary’s refinery feedstock, making the disruption particularly sensitive for Budapest, which remains exempt from the EU ban on seaborne Russian crude. Slovak officials also reported an interruption, though local inventories limited immediate supply stress. Russia completed emergency repairs and restarted the line on 20 August, Szijjarto said, thanking Moscow for what he called a rapid restoration. The outage lasted roughly two days and did not prompt Budapest to tap its strategic reserves. The pipeline strike forms part of a wider uptick in cross-border attacks on energy infrastructure. Overnight on 20–21 August, Ukrainian drones ignited a large fire at Russia’s Novoshakhtinsk oil refinery, the largest in the country’s south. Moscow, in turn, said it hit a gas compressor station and other energy facilities in eastern Ukraine, a claim Kyiv’s Energy Ministry confirmed without detailing damage. Repeated Ukrainian raids have compounded refinery outages inside Russia, contributing to gasoline shortages in several regions despite a domestic fuel-export ban imposed on 28 July. Wholesale petrol prices on the St. Petersburg exchange remain near record highs, according to market data.