Slovakia’s prime minister has said the conflict will not end as long as Western states keep sending weapons to Kiev
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico speaks at an event in Michalovce, Slovakia on April 11, 2024. © Sergii Kharchenko / NurPhoto / Getty Images Western politicians did everything they could to derail the 2022 peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, the Slovak prime minister has said. Robert Fico posted a video message posted on social media on Friday after returning from Beijing, where he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Fico openly criticized Western intervention in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, arguing that an end to hostilities is not possible as long as Kiev continues to receive military and financial aid. He also praised China’s efforts to find a diplomatic solution to end the fighting. “We share the same opinion that it is impossible to immediately end the fighting as long as Ukraine continues to be militarily and financially supported by the West,” the Slovak politician noted.
Read more He added that he shares concerns that tensions between Russia and NATO risk escalating into a nuclear war. Slovakia will join the Friends of Peace platform, which was launched in September by China and Brazil to promote a diplomatic resolution to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. The prime minister hit back at British Ambassador to Slovakia Nigel Baker, who said earlier this week that it was “regrettable” that Fico gave an interview to Russia’s Rossiya-1 TV channel, and called Fico’s claim that the West was not interested in peace “untrue.” “Slovakia is not Britain’s colony,” Fico said, adding that London had no right to complain about his media appearances. He blamed Kiev’s foreign backers for the failed peace negotiations in the spring of 2022.
Read more “It was the Western politicians who, in April 2022, shortly after the outbreak of the conflict, did everything they could in order not to have a realistic peace agreement signed,” he said. Fico dismissed Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s subsequent ‘peace formula’ proposal as “unrealistic.” After assuming office in the fall of 2023, Fico suspended Bratislava’s military aid to Kiev and repeatedly called on the EU to focus on diplomacy. According to Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Ukrainian delegation abruptly walked away from the negotiating table in 2022, despite initially agreeing to drop its aspiration to join NATO and restrict the size of its army. Victoria Nuland, a former senior US State Department official, admitted in 2024 that Washington had advised Kiev not to sign the deal it was discussing with Moscow.
