Friday’s protest against Fico’s controversial Russia stance comes after his meeting with Putin in Moscow last month, as well as amid his threat to cut aid to Ukrainian refugees living in Slovakia.
Demonstrations took place against Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico on Friday over his pro-Moscow stance as well as his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin last month.
Friday’s protest in Bratislava, the Slovak capital, came weeks after PM Fico’s meeting with Putin and a day after he threatened to cut financial aid for more than 130,000 Ukrainian refugees living in the country, in retaliation to Ukraine’s decision to stop the delivery of Russian gas to Slovakia via its territory to Slovakia.
Around 4,000 people held EU and Slovak flags and various signs, with some reading “We are Europe” and “Treason!”.
“I refuse to let this country fall under Russian political influence. This is the infinite audacity of our Prime Minister,” one of the protesters, Lucia Štasselova, was quoted to have told the crowd by local media.
The protest ended with participants singing the Slovak national anthem, with some chanting, “We are not a Russian rag.”
Fico met with Putin on 22 December in Moscow to discuss gas supplies, among other issues, which Moscow called Slovakia’s offer to be a neutral place for peace talks on Ukraine. He became the third EU leader to visit Putin in the Kremlin since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 after Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
Slovakia and Ukraine spat over gas supply
Gas exports via Soviet-era pipelines running through Ukraine were halted on Wednesday, 1 January, after Kyiv refused to renew a pre-war transit deal with Russia’s state energy giant Gazprom.
The deal between Kyiv and Moscow had been in place for decades up until its expiration. However, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, vowed not to renew it, arguing that he would not allow countries to “earn additional billions on our blood.”
As the deal neared its expiration, Slovakia, which relies heavily on Russian gas, tried to persuade Ukraine to change course, arguing that a failure to renew the energy deal would not hurt Moscow but instead lead to increased prices in Slovakia and higher costs for the EU.
In a video message posted on Facebook, Fico said his Smer party would also consider cutting electricity supplies to Ukraine and demand the renewal of gas transits or compensation for the financial loss he says Slovakia has taken due to the halting of Russian gas into its territory.
