India, Feb. 22 -- Hungary's decision to block a 90 billion European Union loan for Ukraine has done more than stall financial assistance. It has exposed the fragile architecture beneath Western unity, a structure that, after four years of war, appears increasingly strained by energy dependence, domestic politics and competing national interests.

The veto, announced in Brussels this week, conditions approval of the loan on the restoration of Russian oil transit through the Druzhba pipeline. Budapest argues that Ukraine's failure to resume flows violates prior understandings and threatens Hungary's energy security. But beyond the immediate dispute lies a deeper rupture, one that reflects what earlier reporting described as Western consens...