Candidate for PM of Slovakia opposes aid to Ukraine, some Russia sanctions

The former Slovak prime minister who could be set to return to power later this year said he would end the nation’s arms deliveries to Ukraine and put a brake on some plans to introduce more sanctions on Russia.

Robert Fico, whose party leads the polls in Slovakia before an election expected in September, vowed also to force weapons shipments from elsewhere to be rerouted. He would veto “pointless” sanctions on Russia that harm European Union member states, he said in an interview, Bloomberg reported on April 27.

The current administration in Bratislava has supplied Ukraine with ammunition, Soviet-era fighter jets, infantry vehicles and the S-300 missile system. Slovakia has also backed all sanctions against Russia, even as only half of its citizens see the Kremlin as the aggressor in the war next door.

“I don’t want to supply deadly weapons to Ukraine just for the sake of a good image among western countries,” Fico, 58, said at his party’s headquarters in Bratislava on Tuesday. “We have the right to have our own opinion.”

His Smer party is leading all polls in Slovakia — a member of the euro zone as well as the EU and NATO — albeit with about 20% of the vote. That’s still double the level from the bottom after he stepped down amid the biggest protests since the end of communism following the murder of an investigative reporter and his fiancée.

This week, Fico met with ambassadors of the US, UK and EU to lay out his foreign policy goals. He told them that if he is back in office, Slovakia would not support Ukraine’s bid for membership in NATO because that “biggest nonsense” would make the conflict global, he said.