The new Slovak Prime Minister, Robert Fico, announced this Thursday the end of arms shipments to Ukraine, limiting Slovak support to “humanitarian and civil aid.”
“We consider that aid to Ukraine should be allocated only to humanitarian and civil issues. We will not supply more weapons to Ukraine,” declared Fico, a day after his appointment as head of a coalition government, associated with a far-right party. .-Russia.
“The war in Ukraine is not ours, we have nothing to do with this war,” he added.
According to Fico, “the immediate cessation of military operations is the best solution for Ukraine. The European Union (EU) should move from the status of arms supplier to that of peacemaker.”
During his statements to deputies, Fico also announced that he would not support new sanctions against Russia until “their impact on Slovakia” is analyzed.
“If such sanctions are going to harm us, as most sanctions do, I see no reason to support them,” the Slovak Prime Minister stressed.
The Kremlin immediately reacted to this announcement by downplaying this announcement.
“Slovakia’s participation in the supply of weapons [para Kiev] In fact, it is not that big and, therefore, it will hardly affect the entire process,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov told reporters, before once again accusing the United States of fueling the conflict by helping Ukraine.
Slovakia’s president on Wednesday swore in the new government led by conservative populist former Prime Minister Robert Fico, expected to pursue a nationalist foreign policy, which has already promised to end military aid to Ukraine to repel the Russian invasion.
Robert Fico returns to the position of prime minister for the fourth time, after his party Smer (Direction-Social Democracy) won the parliamentary elections on September 30.
The party won 42 seats in the 150-seat parliament after a pro-Russian and anti-American campaign.
Fico formed a parliamentary majority by signing a coalition government agreement with the leftist Hlas (Voice) party and the ultranationalist Slovak National Party. Hlas, led by Fico’s former deputy in the Government, Peter Pellegrini, achieved 27 mandates.
The reunion of Fico and Pellegrini was fundamental for the creation of the new government. The third partner, the openly pro-Russian Slovak National Party, won 10 seats in the legislature.
Fico’s victory could mark a significant shift in the country’s foreign policy and undermine fragile unity in the European Union (EU) and NATO.
The inaugurated prime minister has already repeated Russian President Vladimir Putin’s claims that the Ukrainian government runs a “Nazi state” from which ethnic Russians in the country’s east needed protection.
Source: TSF
