Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Magyar said in an interview with the Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat that Hungary intends to reduce deliveries of Russian oil and gas and eliminate its energy dependence on Russia, but stressed that “we cannot get rid of energy dependence [on Russia] overnight,” per TASS. Magyar leads the Tisza party, which won Hungary’s April parliamentary elections, and the remarks are the new government’s clearest commitment yet to the EU’s Russian-energy phase-out. Per the TASS account, Economy and Energy Minister Istvan Kapitany said in September that the government is prepared to stop using Russian gas by the EU’s October 2027 deadline, with LNG talks under way, and that Tisza’s program targets ending dependence by 2035. Hungary received over 8.5 million tons of Russian oil and more than 7 billion cubic meters of Russian gas in 2025, mostly through the Druzhba pipeline and TurkStream.
Hungary's Magyar pledges to cut Russian energy dependence
Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Magyar told a Finnish newspaper that Hungary intends to reduce Russian oil and gas deliveries and eliminate its energy dependence on Russia, though he said it cannot be done overnight.
Why it matters: Hungary took over 8.5 million tons of Russian oil and 7 billion cubic meters of Russian gas in 2025, so a Magyar government commitment to the EU's 2027 gas phase-out would pull a major holdout into the bloc's decoupling.
Data as of Sunday, October 11, 2026; via TASS (in Russian, translated), whose article was read in full via a live-browser extraction. TASS attributes the remarks to Magyar's interview with the Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat: single-sourced and carried by a Russian state-affiliated outlet.
Sources
- Magyar: Hungary will reduce energy dependence on Russia (in Russian) · TASS (Russian state-affiliated), citing Helsingin Sanomat · 2026-10-11