Ukraine's sanctions on Russia's Lukoil halting oil deliveries to Hungary, Budapest says.

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Ukraine's hardened sanctions against Lukoil, Russia's second-largest oil producer, has stopped the company's deliveries to Hungary, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto claimed on July 16. Ukraine strengthened sanctions against Lukoil in June 2024, effectively removing the possibility that Ukraine can be a transit country for its oil. Szijjarto made the comments after meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov on the sidelines of a U.N. meeting in New York.

"There's now a legal situation in Ukraine based on which Lukoil is not currently delivering to Hungary," Szijjarto claimed, according to Bloomberg. "We are now working on a legal solution that will enable us to resume supplies because Russian oil is important from the perspective of our energy security," Russian state news agency TASS quoted Szijjarto as saying. Szijjarto has previously said that 80% of its crude oil supplies in 2022 came from Russia.

Hungary has maintained close ties with Russia since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and Szijjarto has made regular trips to Russia, unlike other European foreign ministers.

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