The new prime minister of Slovakia, for the left-wing populist Smer Robert Fico announced that Slovakia would stop providing arms aid to Ukraine.
However, humanitarian aid to the neighboring country will continue in the old model, Fico told the Slovak parliament.
– I do not support any military aid to Ukraine. An immediate end to military operations is the best solution we have for Ukraine. The EU should change from an arms supplier to a peacemaker, Fico said on Thursday.
In addition, Fico said he would oppose sanctions against Russia if their effects on Slovakia were not clarified. He said that he sees no reason to support sanctions that cause damage to Slovakia.
What exactly is wrong with Fico in Ukraine? There are several reasons.
Election victory from fatigue
The Smer party led by Fico is a value-conservative left-wing party that had a tough election campaign against the liberal, pro-Ukraine PS party.
Since Russia launched its major attack on Ukraine in February 2022, Slovakia has supported its neighbor briskly in relation to its size, mostly with the country’s old Soviet-derived arsenal. This has included, among other things, all of the country’s 13 Mig-29 fighters, anti-aircraft missiles, helicopters and armored vehicles.
According to the Kiel Institute measured in money, Slovakia has supported Ukraine the 19th most out of all the countries that participated in the arms aid.
However, many Slovaks began to feel war-weary during the election, especially in the country’s poorer regions in the east and the countryside.
Frustration began to be directed at the Ukrainian refugees.
– We are still happy to help poorer Ukrainians, but not rich Ukrainians who drive cars that you can’t even buy in Slovakia, the former mayor of the village of Choňkovce in eastern Slovakia Jan Skyba told for the Financial Times In the aftermath of Smer’s victory.
Smer and Fico promised Slovaks that instead of supporting Ukraine and Ukrainian refugees, they would focus on supporting the country’s own citizens.
Equally, some Slovaks feared that the Ukrainian grain flowing into or through the country would collapse the country’s own agriculture. Slovakia accompanied Poland in last month’s grain dispute.
Old grudges
According to Politico The relationship between Fico and neighboring Ukraine frayed when Fico was the prime minister of Slovakia for the last time in the 2000s. In that case, disputes related to natural gas between Russia and Ukraine escalated and Russia cut off the natural gas pumped to Europe via Ukraine.
This happened in the middle of the winter of 2009, and Slovakia, which lives on natural gas, was in dire straits. The country’s factories had to be closed, which is why Slovakia’s economy made daily losses of one hundred million euros.
At that time, Fico went to Kiev to settle the matter first.
In Kiev, Fico’s delegation was ambushed by Ukrainians. Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko first made the Slovaks wait, and in the end, in addition to the politicians, journalists were present at the meeting.
Tymoshenko publicly scolded Fico and Slovakia for twenty minutes for siding with Russia. According to a prominent Slovak official who commented on the incident to Politico, “Fico was red with anger” and “humiliated”.
After the graduation, Fico’s party continued to Moscow, where the president Vladimir Putin received the Slovaks with ceremony in the luxurious St. George’s Hall of the Kremlin.
Since then, Fico began to take openly anti-Ukraine positions on foreign policy issues, senior researcher at Slovakia’s SFPA think tank Alexander Duleba tells Politico.
Russian sympathies
Fico has long been somewhat sympathetic to the Kremlin. For example, in relation to the war in Ukraine, he has taken positions that differ from those of other Western allies.
– The war in Ukraine did not start last year, but it started in 2014, when Ukrainian Nazis and fascists started murdering Russian citizens in Donbass and Luhansk, Fico said at the election conference in the fall.
According to Fico, no amount of Western weapons will change the course of the war in Ukraine. According to Fico, the goal of the West should be peace negotiations as quickly as possible, “because Russia will never leave Crimea or the territories it controls”.
Former Foreign Minister of Slovakia by Miroslav Wlachovský by However, Russia did not leave everything up to Fico in Slovakia, but also influenced the parliamentary elections with the help of disinformation and the financing of pro-Russian media.
As such, due to its limited weapons arsenal, Slovakia might not even have been able to help Ukraine terribly anymore, at least until the country gets new Western iron to replace the donated weapons.
However, under Fico’s leadership, Slovakia can put small hitches in the wagons of arms aid, for example by banning the passage of arms shipments to Ukraine.