A populist former prime minister whose party is favored to win Slovakia’s early parliamentary election plans to reverse the country’s military and political support for neighboring Ukraine if he returns to power
Robert Fico, who led Slovakia from 2006 to 2010 and again from 2012 to 2018, is the frontrunner to occupy the prime minister’s office after the Sept. 30 election. He and his left-wing Direction, or Smer, party have campaigned on a clear pro-Russian and anti-American message.
According to a March survey commissioned by the Bratislava-based Globsec think tank, a majority of Slovak respondents, 51%, believe the West or Ukraine are responsible for the war. Half saw the United States as posing a security threat for their country, up from 39% in 2022. Of the eight nations surveyed, Slovaks were by far the most distrustful of the U.S.; Bulgaria was a distant second with 33% and Hungary third on 25%.
In February 2022, Slovakia opened its borders to Ukrainian refugees, as well as sending arms to Kyiv. Nonetheless, many Slovaks still have a soft spot for their Russian Slavonic brothers and sisters and are grateful for the Red Army for liberating the country at the end of WWII. Russian disinformation operations have also played their part: pro-Moscow propaganda is now widespread in the Slovak media.
“It’s naive to think that Russia would leave Crimea,’’ Fico said, referring to the peninsula that Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014. “It’s naive to think that Russia would ever abandon the territory it controls” in Ukraine. In 2022, inflation rose to 12.13% percent, driven by soaring energy prices. In September 2022, thousands joined a protest organized by Fico’s party at which he said the government’s support for Ukraine was partially responsible for the rise in inflation.
Now, Fico repeats the Russian narrative about the causes of the Ukraine war, including Putin’s unsupported claim that the current Ukrainian government“I say it loud and clear and will do so: The war in Ukraine didn’t start yesterday or last year. It began in 2014. when the Ukrainian Nazis and fascists started to murder the Russian citizens in Donbas and Luhansk,” Fico told a cheering crowd of supporters in his hometown of Topolcany on Aug 30.
He unsuccessfully ran for president in 2014 and reclaimed the premiership in 2016, but was forced to resign two years later after the slaying ofShortly before his death, Kuciak had been writing about alleged ties between the Italian mafia and people close to Fico and about corruption scandals linked to Fico’s party. The killings prompted major street protests and led to the collapse of Fico’s coalition government. Fico’s deputy in Smer, Peter Pellegrini, took over as prime minister.
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