PM Robert Fico visits eastern Slovakia on January 23, 2024, ahead of his meeting with Ukrainian PM Denys Shmyhal. (source: TASR)
Prime Minister Robert Fico knows exactly what he will tell his Ukrainian counterpart Denys Shmyhal during their Wednesday meeting in western Ukraine, which the Slovak premier has dubbed “important” for him.
“I’ll say what I told the Americans and the Ukrainians when I met them,” Fico said in an interview with the public broadcaster RTVS last Saturday.
The leaders will meet in Uzhhorod, a town whose airport lies just 90 metres from the Slovak border. It’s a rather unusual place for the meeting. President Zuzana Čaputová, a supporter of Ukraine, has paid a visit to the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv twice since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. But the president’s and Fico’s positions on the war in Ukraine couldn’t be more distant, in fact.
According to Fico, it makes no difference whether he meets Shmyhal in Uzhhorod or Kyiv. “It is practical,” the PM said on Tuesday, adding that there is no war in Kyiv. “Do you really think there is a war in Kyiv? Don’t be ridiculous. There’s an absolutely normal life.” One person died in Kyiv following a Russian strike on January 23.
Last weekend, Fico revealed what he will tell Shmyhal.
“I know what I’m going there with. Humanitarian aid, and I’ll confirm that Ukraine will receive no weapons from the Slovak army. I’ll tell him that there are things that we absolutely disagree on. As for Ukraine’s EU membership, the country must meet the conditions. I’ll tell him that I’m against Ukraine becoming a NATO member, and I’ll veto it because it’s the foundation for a third world war,” the Slovak PM told RTVS.
He added that he doesn’t expect to hear any solution to the end of the war from the Ukrainian delegation other than the one that would involve “200,000 more dead people”. Fico doesn’t believe in a military solution to this conflict.
“There must be a compromise, which will be very painful for both parties,” he said, adding that it’s unrealistic for the Russians to withdraw from the Crimea, Donbas and Luhansk regions. “Everyone knows it.”
