Zelenskyy calls European pipeline pressure “blackmail”—and a sanctions rollback in disguise

European leaders are pressing Ukraine to restore oil flows through a pipeline that Russia bombed—and conditioning the demand on weapons supplies.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that it is blackmail, and that the pipeline demand is indistinguishable from lifting sanctions on Russia. Restoring Druzhba would resume Russian crude exports and the revenues that fund Moscow’s war against Ukraine.

“They’re forcing me to restore Druzhba,” Zelenskyy told Interfax-Ukraine on 15 March. “How is this different from lifting sanctions on the Russians?” He said some European leaders were trying to avoid a more fundamental question: “Did we all together decide to restore Russian oil exports? Some leaders want to jump over this step. That’s wrong.”

Sanctions by another name

The pipeline pressure has already cost Ukraine a blocked €90 billion loan ($103 billion), the veto of the EU’s 20th sanctions package against Russia, and energy cutoffs against Kyiv (diesel and emergency electricity)—all imposed by countries now demanding Ukraine repair the infrastructure Russia bombed.

Three days before Zelenskyy spoke, the US Treasury issued a 30-day license on 12 March permitting any country to purchase Russian crude already loaded on tankers—an estimated 124 million barrels—citing the need to stabilize energy markets disrupted by the US-Israeli war against Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The permit runs through 11 April.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called it “narrowly tailored” and said it would not significantly benefit Russia. On 15 March, President Donald Trump went further, telling NBC News the sanctions would “go back as soon as the crisis is over”—and that Zelenskyy is “far more difficult to make a deal with” than Putin.

The war chest argument

Zelenskyy told Ukrinform that Russia’s projected budget deficit for 2026 stands at roughly $100 billion—but that Moscow earned approximately $10 billion in oil revenue in the previous two weeks alone.

“So they can simply cover this deficit if the war continues,” he said. “And if the sanctions policy is weakened, Russia will earn money.”

Russia’s oil revenues collapsed 24% in 2025 to their lowest level since 2020, pushing its budget deficit to a 15-year high—the squeeze that Western sanctions were designed to deepen.

The blackmail accusation

Zelenskyy said the pressure had moved beyond economics to weapons. “If they put conditions that Ukraine doesn’t receive weapons, then I’m sorry—I’m disarmed on this question.”

“Why can we tell the United States we’re against lifting sanctions, while on the other hand force Ukraine to restore oil through Druzhba—at a political price that pays for anti-European policy? That’s also a kind of sanctions lifting.”

“I told our friends in Europe that this is called blackmail,” he said.

Background

The Druzhba pipeline has been shut since 27 January, when a Russian drone strike hit the Brody pumping station in Lviv Oblast, severely damaging high-pressure pumps, control systems, and auxiliary equipment, and triggering a storage tank fire that burned for ten days.

On 5 March, Zelenskyy told Ekonomichna Pravda the pipeline could be operational within a month to six weeks. His 15 March remarks suggest no political agreement on those terms has been reached.