Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico (Smer) will take part in the celebration of the anniversary of the end of World War II in Moscow next May. He accepted an invitation from Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
Fico, for example, criticizes the EU’s anti-Russian sanctions and military aid from Western countries to Ukraine, which has been resisting a full-scale military invasion by Russia since February 2022. Among the statesmen of the member states of the European Union, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán also has similar views regarding the conflict in Ukraine.
“The Red Army and the peoples of the former Soviet Union played an irreplaceable role in defeating fascism and winning the Second World War. The Slovak government values the legacy of the fight against fascism, the historical truth about the Second World War and the role the Red Army played in it,” said Fico.
According to him, it is therefore natural that, as the head of the Slovak government, he has an “eminent interest” in participating in the official celebrations of the victory over fascism, which will be held in Moscow on May 9 next year.
An international disgrace, says the opposition
The opposition, including the Slovakia movement (formerly OĽaNO) former Prime Minister Igor Matovič criticized Fico’s planned trip to Russia. “Unfortunately, his participation in the celebrations in Moscow will be an international shame for the whole of Slovakia, because none of the prime ministers of the developed countries of Europe, apart from Fico and Orbán, will act as extras for the killer Putin,” said Michal Šipoš, chairman of the parliamentary club of the Slovakia movement.
“Towards our Western partners, this trip will be a signal that Slovakia no longer wants to be a part of democratic Western countries, but supports a war aggressor such as Russia,” says Branislav Gröhling, chairman of the Sloboda a Solidarita (SaS) party. It was the SaS and the former OĽaNO that were part of the former government, which after the beginning of the Russian invasion of the neighboring country supported Ukraine with supplies of military equipment.
According to the chairman of the strongest opposition movement Progressive Slovakia, Michal Šimečka, Fico wants to cover his diplomatic isolation on the way to Moscow, among other things, or divert attention from the disintegrating government coalition after the departure of three deputies from the Slovak National Party club.
Fico has previously said that he is ready to talk to Putin and that he wants to restore normal relations with Moscow after the end of the war in Ukraine.
