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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has accused Poland of being “gripped by war psychosis” after Polish foreign minister Radosław Sikorski expressed hope that a pipeline bringing Russian oil to Hungary would be destroyed by Ukraine.
The latest diplomatic dispute between the two countries began earlier this week, when Sikorski said that his government “cannot guarantee that an independent Polish court” would not order Vladimir Putin to be arrested if he flew over Poland to attend a proposed summit with Donald Trump in Budapest.
In response, Hungarian foreign minister Péter Szijjártó sarcastically asked if that would be the same type of “independent court which, on [Polish Prime Minister] Donald Tusk’s orders, refused to extradite the terrorist who blew up the Nord Stream 2 pipeline”.
Peter, I am proud of the Polish court which ruled that sabotaging an invader is no crime.
Moreover, I hope your brave compatriot, Major Magyar, finally succeeds in knocking out the oil pipeline that feeds Putin's war machine and you get your oil via Croatia.— Radosław Sikorski 🇵🇱🇪🇺 (@sikorskiradek) October 22, 2025
Last week, a Polish court ruled that a Ukrainian man detained on suspicion of sabotaging the Nord Stream pipelines that brought Russian gas to Germany should not be extradited to Germany, where he is wanted on a European Arrest Warrant. Tusk had previously expressed hope that he would not be deported.
In response to Szijjártó’s comment, Sikorski said that he was “proud of the Polish court which ruled that sabotaging an invader is no crime”.
He then added: “Moreover, I hope your brave compatriot, Major Magyar, finally succeeds in knocking out the oil pipeline that feeds Putin’s war machine.”
That was a reference to Robert Brovdi, the commander of Ukraine’s drone forces (and a member of Ukraine’s ethnic Hungarian minority), who has been involved in efforts to attack the Druzhba pipeline that brings Russian oil westwards to Europe.
While most European Union countries, including Poland, no longer receive Russian oil through the pipeline, landlocked Hungary and Slovakia continue to do so.
In August this year, the governments of Hungary and Slovakia issued a joint statement calling on the European Commission to take action in response to Ukrainian attacks on the Druzhba pipeline, which they said were threatening their oil supplies.
Sikorski’s latest remarks were condemned by Viktor Orbán, who called them “madness” in a message posted on Facebook beneath a post by the head of his political office, Balázs Orbán.
“The Polish government is gripped by war psychosis,” wrote Viktor Orbán. “They want to destroy the 1000-year-old Hungarian-Polish friendship. They support blowing up the Druzhba pipeline in a sabotage operation, as happened with Nord Stream. This would cause serious damage to the wallets of Hungarian families!”
Hungary, which retains warm relations with Moscow and has sought to block some forms of support for Ukraine, has regularly been at loggerheads with Poland, which has been one of Kyiv’s closest allies since the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022.
Last month, Orbán accused Tusk of “playing a dangerous game” after the Polish prime minister declared that the conflict in Ukraine is “our war”. Last year, a Polish deputy foreign minister suggested that Hungary could leave the EU and NATO and instead “create a union with Putin and authoritarian states”.
In July this year, Poland withdrew its ambassador from Budapest in response to Hungary’s decision to grant asylum to a Polish opposition politician wanted for alleged crimes committed while serving in the former Law and Justice (PiS) government, which was closely aligned with Orbán.
Hungary's Viktor Orbán has accused Poland's @donaldtusk of "playing a dangerous game with the lives of millions of Europeans" after Tusk said the conflict in Ukraine is "our war".
"You may think you are at war with Russia, but Hungary is not", said Orbán https://t.co/IK2OvPYU7A
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) October 1, 2025
Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.
Main image credit: European Council
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
