“Ukraine has the full right to protect itself. We ourselves would not act differently in their situation,” President Zuzana Čaputová said following the session of the government's Security Council on the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Thursday morning.
Slovakia strongly denounces Russian aggression and supports Ukraine. Čaputová reiterated that Russia has attacked the weaker Ukraine.
“The hopes that Kremlin will be satisfied with the occupation of Luhansk and Donetsk Oblast were illusory,” she said.
Čaputová repeated what PM Eduard Heger stated in his first reaction to the invasion: that all victims of this war will be the victims of Vladimir Putin and he will be responsible for them in the eyes of the global public.
She also called on the people of Slovakia to remain calm. Slovakia's territorial integrity and security are not directly impacted, despite the fact that the conflict is just across the eastern border, the president stressed.
Warnings against disinformation
PM Eduard Heger called for solidarity with the people fleeing Ukraine.
“Those who are running away from war deserve our help based on international laws," Heger noted. He compared the situation with 1968, when “Slovak parents and grandparents were running away from invasion in our country.”