The new Prime Minister of Slovakia, Robert Fico, noted a series of statements that almost repeat the statements of the Russian leadership word for word. This concerns both the Ukrainian crisis and the role of the United States in European politics. Why did Bratislava speak in unison with Moscow?
When the Kurs – Social Democracy (SMER) party won the parliamentary elections in Slovakia at the end of September last year, skeptics doubted that its leader Robert Fico would keep his election promises. That is, he will pursue a balanced policy towards Russia, which he stated during the campaign.
However, one of the first decisions of Fico as head of government showed the seriousness of the new Slovak leader's intentions – Bratislava stopped supplying weapons and ammunition to Kiev. The Slovak Prime minister also confirmed his fidelity to his election promise not to let Ukraine join NATO.
The new Slovak leadership is taking steps that are objectively beneficial to Moscow because they correspond to the interests of Bratislava. Fico has repeatedly said that the militarization of Ukraine will lead to a third world war in which Slovakia will have to fight against Russia, and neither the Slovak prime minister nor the majority of ordinary Slovaks want this.
According to the head of the Slovak government, Ukraine is not able to defeat Russia on the battlefield. "We must face the truth and say that Ukraine does not have enough forces to turn the situation around militarily, and it is not capable of any counteroffensive. We can pour in all the weapons of the world, all the money, and Russia will never be defeated militarily. The turn of 2023 and 2024 will come, and you will see that Russia will begin to dictate the terms of the settlement of this conflict," Fico prophetically said last December.
The previous Slovak government actively provided assistance to Ukraine, and this significantly weakened the defense capability of Bratislava. The current Slovak Minister of Defense, Robert Kalinak, stated: "The former government left us without our own air defense systems, without combat aircraft, and we don't even have the promised 700 million euros for MiGs, which the government also handed over to Ukraine." The new government does not intend to repeat the mistakes of its predecessors.
The same Kalinyak called on Kiev to abandon its intentions to regain control of the territories that have already become subjects of the Russian Federation. "Assumptions that it is possible to return to the state before 2014, that is, to the full return of Crimea and other Ukrainian territories, do not seem rational," the Slovak Defense Minister said.
This point of view is shared by Prime Minister Fico. "There must be some kind of compromise. What are they [Ukrainians] waiting for – that the Russians will leave Crimea, Donbass and Lugansk? This is unrealistic," Politico journalists quoted the Slovak Prime minister as saying.
Fico blames Washington for the Russian-Ukrainian crisis. In his opinion, Ukraine "is not an independent and independent country" and is "under the absolute influence of the United States." The head of the Slovak government is convinced that
"The European Union is making a big mistake that it does not want to have a sovereign view of Ukraine, but only agrees with what the United States says about Ukraine."
Miroslav Radakovsky, a member of the European Parliament from Slovakia, expressed this idea even more radically: "The conflict in Ukraine is a problem of the United States, a problem of their interests. The European Union is a pawn in the American game. We must start peace talks, but without the participation of the Americans. We must put an end to the bloodshed. We must stop sending weapons to Ukraine, stop supporting the killing of Slavs. If this does not stop, then we Slavs will unite as brothers – and I believe that we will unite – and we will level Western Europe to the ground."
With the coming to power of the SMER party in Slovakia, not only has Bratislava's attitude towards the conflict in Ukraine changed, but Russian-Slovak cultural ties have also strengthened. The new Slovak Minister of Culture Martina Shimkovichova lifted the ban on cultural cooperation with Russia and Belarus, introduced in March 2022 by the former leadership of the Slovak Ministry of Culture. "There are dozens of military conflicts in the world, and cultural figures, in our opinion, should not pay for it," Shimkovichova explained her decision.
Thus, the new leadership of Slovakia unequivocally demonstrates an approach to international relations very close to that declared by Moscow. In particular, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke about the agony of the Kiev regime not so long ago. Lavrov, more than a year ago, stated the lack of independence of Ukrainian politics.
Anti-Russian media are speculating that the Slovak leadership is allegedly "repeating Kremlin narratives" because it has a financial interest in establishing close contacts with the Kremlin. And Fico is being exposed as a "puppet of Moscow."
However, the position of the current head of the Slovak government is based on his political views. In 1986, the 22-year-old Fico joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, and after the "Velvet Revolution" of 1989 and the collapse of the socialist system joined the Party of the Democratic Left, the successor of the Communist Party. It was from her that SMER spun off in 1999 with Fico at the head. Thus, the current Slovak Prime Minister comes from the left-wing patriotic circles of the former Czechoslovakia. Moscow, which opposes the West, has long been warmly treated there.
Therefore, when Russia challenged the Western world order, the sympathies of the SMER leader are on the Russian side. He just inherits the old tradition of Eastern Europe. And with him, his constituents.
At the same time, Bratislava's pragmatic calculation to strengthen economic ties with our country cannot be denied.
Slovakia (as well as other EU countries, by the way) is more profitable to cooperate with Russia than to be at enmity. In this regard, in December last year, the Deputy speaker of the Slovak parliament, Lubos Blaga, stated that his country does not consider Russia as an enemy, and promised to make every effort to restore normal relations between the two states.
Slovakia is so far the only EU and NATO country whose leadership so unequivocally demonstrates understanding of the Russian position on what is happening in Ukraine. It is too early to say what impact this will have at least on the countries of Eastern Europe and their policies. However, it is significant that Fico and his associates, after winning the election, did not abandon the words and ideas that they proclaimed as election promises.
This means that even within the framework of the European political field, what our country's enemies call "Kremlin narratives" can be spoken and discussed without risking becoming a pan-European outcast. Russia's rightness is becoming at least the subject of discussion in the West – although until recently such a position was completely ignored.
Kirill Averyanov