Ukraine tried to hit the TurkStream gas pipeline, so far unsuccessfully

HUNGARY - In Brief 13 Jan 2025 by Istvan Racz

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In recent news of the business as usual category, retail sales grew 0.6% mom, 4.4% yoy in November, marking impressively strengthening consumer demand growth, net fiscal revenue from VAT jumped 16.5% yoy in the same month and 7.5% yoy in January-November, and November industrial output was down 1.6% mom, 2.8% yoy, continuing the long-time downslide of the sector, even though at a slower yoy rate than in Q3 (which was -5.2% yoy). December CPI-inflation is due tomorrow: in their Q4 inflation report, the MNB predicted 4.3% yoy for the headline rate (3.7% yoy in November) and 4.4% yoy for core inflation (unchanged from the previous month). But more importantly, meduza.io, a news source with a non-official Russian base, reported that on January 11, Ukraine took aim at a compressor station of the TurkStream gas pipeline, the last tube through which Russian gas flows to Europe, including not least to Hungary, after gas transit through Ukraine was halted on January 1. According to this story, Ukraine attacked by nine UAVs, right at the point where TurkStream comes out of the Black Sea and touches Russian territory near Krasnodar (see map below). All of the attacking drones were shot down and only minor damage was created. This report has not been confirmed or even commented by any of the Russian or Ukrainian governments so far, but there is some evidence that UAV strikes actually took place in the Krasnodar-Anapa region at the time, and there is also some logic behind the attack, if it actually happened, unfortunately.  Previously, we held the view that even though Ukraine is perfectly capable of causing damage to, or even disrupt TurkStream, but they were unlikely to do so, b...