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Hello and welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service.

We're coming to live from London.

In the chair today is me, Sean Lay.

Our main story tonight is about the war between Russia and Ukraine. It's been a mix of mistrust in the political salons of Europe, engineering skullduggery and diplomacy characterized by contradiction. Today, though, it seems to have been resolved to everyone's satisfaction. I'm talking about the row of Russian oil abruptly stopping flowing through the Drusba pipeline,

a relic of the Soviet Union. It was hungry in Slovakia who felt the pinch and who accused

Ukraine of being involved. At the time, both were run by Russia-friendly governments,

the least well-disposed of the European Union's members to supporting Ukraine against the

Russian invasion,

and understandably not that keen on EU sanctions on Russia's oil exports either.

An additional complication was that the pipeline appeared to be damaged

where it passes through Western Ukraine,

and the Ukrainians didn't seem terribly keen on getting it repaired any time soon.

Victor Orban, the long-serving Hungarian Prime Minister, who'd been Kiev's most obstinate

in Europe, deployed the pipeline as an election issue. It didn't prevent the landslide,

which just over a week ago swept in from power, though. At lunchtime, local time, the oil was flowing all the way through the Drusper

indirectly helping to lubricate the flow of something else.

EU money, after a $105 billion loan which had been frozen,

was handed to President Zelensky's government,

the government which says it desperately needs that money.

That's the sound of a US-supplied Hawitzer, firing near Prokowski in the Dernetsk region of eastern Ukraine.

America continues to supply weapons, but only if Ukraine pays for them.

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