Slovak PM says ready to meet with Putin
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Robert Fico has also pledged to block Ukraine's NATO membership, claiming that such a move would spark a third world war.
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Slovakia's Prime Minister Robert Fico arrives for the V4 meeting in Prague, Czech Republic, on February 27, 2024. (AP)
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has stated that he is prepared to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin "without hesitation" and that he expects the West will soon "reassess" its military backing for Ukraine.
Fico told Russia's Rossiya-1 TV network that he would be "very pleased" to attend Victory Day celebrations in Moscow next May, when Russia would commemorate the 80th anniversary of the end of World War 2 and the victory over Nazism," explaining he believes it to be his "personal duty."
The prime minister told journalist Olga Skabeyeva that he "even met him when he was prime minister before he became president," and that he was "deadly serious" about a face-to-face meeting.
Fico makes about-face in Slovakia's Ukraine policy
Fico was elected Prime Minister of Slovakia for the third time last year, and he promptly froze the country's military aid to Ukraine. Like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, he has frequently urged for a diplomatic solution to the Russia-Ukraine war and last week criticized the EU's acceptance of a $38 billion loan to Ukraine secured by earnings from blocked Russian assets held in Brussels.
He has also pledged to block Ukraine's NATO membership, claiming that such a move would spark a third world war.
While the West continues to arm Ukraine, Fico told Skabeyeva that he expects "common sense will soon prevail, and we will begin to reassess the military conflict in Ukraine," and added he supports any plans that contain the word "peace," detailing that it is "far better to negotiate for two years than to allow soldiers to kill each other for two years."
The Kremlin says it is open to any peace plan that requires Kiev to agree to military neutrality and remove its soldiers from Russian territory, including the Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions, which Russia annexed in 2022. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, on the other hand, argues that his 10-point 'peace formula' is the only possible road map for settling the crisis.
According to this plan, which Moscow has denounced as "delusional," Russia would restore Ukraine's 1991 boundaries, pay reparations to Kiev, and hand over its own leaders to war crimes courts.
Zelensky has also proposed a 'victory plan', suggesting that if granted an invitation to join NATO, long-range weapons, and Western soldiers on the ground, his forces can destroy Russia.
"If someone wanted to escalate tensions, that is exactly what he would say," Fico said of Zelensky's idea.
