The party with the most votes in Slovakia’s parliamentary elections on Saturday (30), with 23% of the votes, the left-wing party Smer, led by the populist Robert Fico, wants to place pro-Russian sentiment at the center of NATO, a military alliance whose members in its Most have supported Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion in February 2022.
Fico, who received this Monday (2) from the Slovak presidency the task of trying to form a coalition to govern the country, promised during the campaign that he would cut military aid to Ukraine if he won.
Although it doesn’t seem like much in absolute terms (about $738 million as of the end of July), Slovakia’s military aid to Ukraine is one of the five largest in Europe in terms of its proportion of Gross Domestic Product (approximately 0.6%) .
It was also important for including 13 MiG fighters, the first (along with Poland) combat aircraft that Ukraine received from NATO in the conflict, and for being the first European Union country to support Kiev with an anti-aircraft missile system, the S-300, among other points.
Fico, a 59-year-old left-wing populist, is a criminal lawyer who entered politics in the 1980s, joining the Czechoslovak Communist Party.
He was first elected a member of Parliament in 1992. His peak was serving as Prime Minister of Slovakia between 2006 and 2010 and between 2012 and 2018, a position to which he is now trying to return.
He resigned from his last mandate after the murder of investigative journalist Ján Kuciak, who investigated cases of corruption and the activities of the Italian ‘Ndrangheta mafia in Slovakia: Mária Trosková, Fico’s advisor, had links with the criminal group.
Now, the former prime minister is once again in the spotlight for his pro-Russian stance in the war. Although he guarantees that Slovakia will help Kiev from a humanitarian point of view, Fico promised that if he manages to form a coalition, his government will no longer send military aid to the Ukrainians.
“Instead of sending weapons to Kiev, the European Union and the United States should use their influence to force Russia and Ukraine to reach a peace compromise,” said the leftist.
At other times, he was more incisive, denying Ukraine’s entry into NATO, which for him would represent “the beginning of the Third World War”.
“The war in Ukraine did not start last year, it started in 2014, when Ukrainian Nazis and fascists began murdering Russian citizens in Donbass and Lugansk,” Fico said in August. “We need to tell the whole world: freedom came from the East, war always comes from the West.”
Military support for Ukraine and sanctions against Russia have never been unanimous in NATO, even though the majority of the military alliance helps Kiev.
Turkey, although it sent military aid to Ukraine and last year condemned the Russian annexation of four Ukrainian regions, refuses to impose sanctions on Russia and helps it circumvent Western sanctions. President Recep Erdogan says he has a “special relationship” with Vladimir Putin.
Hungary, owned by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán (also close to Putin), vetoed parts of the European Union’s military support for Ukraine, refused to supply weapons to Kiev, and did not allow its border with the former Soviet republic to be used. for the transfer of weapons from other countries and criticized the sanctions on Russia.
In September, Poland announced that it would stop sending military aid to Ukraine. With Fico’s promise to also withdraw Slovak support, the pro-Russian wave grows within NATO – and Moscow is grateful.
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