Energy Cooperation with Russia in Time of War in Ukraine: Are Hungary and Slovakia “Trapped”?

Abstract

The invasion of Ukraine by the Russian armed forces on 24 February 2022 was a watershed in relations between Europe and Russia. However, while an unprecedented number of economic sanctions have been adopted by the EU and US, together with other G7 countries, in response to the Russian attack, the energy sector remains a grey zone in which elements of continuity from the past can be observed and are sometimes in conflict with the initiatives taken against Russia’s aggressive foreign and security policy. In the hope of offering some perspectives on the complexity of energy relations between East Central Europe and Russia, this paper attempts to provide an overview of the energy relations with Russia of Hungary and Slovakia as case studies and to explore the different factors contributing to the enduring dependence on Russian energy even though Russia has made the 2014 war in Ukraine into the worst armed conflict in Europe since 1945 with consequences we are not yet fully aware of. The interconnections of energy security issues in Slovakia and Hungary with regional geopolitical developments and domestic political developments – not only in the two East European countries but also in Europe more broadly – make energy relations with Russia a particularly complex multi-dimensional matter in space and across time.