Janos Kummer/Getty Photographs
Robert Fico, Slovakia’s top minister, on January 16, 2024 in Budapest, Hungary.
The Gentleman Report
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Ukraine has rejected tips by means of Slovakia’s new High Minister Robert Fico that it is going to wish to cede territory to Russia to finish the struggle.
“There can also be no compromise on territorial integrity, neither for Ukraine, nor for Slovakia, nor for another nation,” International Ministry spokesman Oleh Nikolenko wrote on Fb.
“Let’s be fair: if Ukraine isn’t protected, there will probably be no safety, neither in Slovakia nor in Europe usually.”
In an interview with Slovak radio over the weekend, Fico introduced an instantaneous problem to that concept, and the core place of maximum of his companions within the Eu Union.
Talking simply days forward of a scheduled seek advice from to Ukraine, Fico informed the general public broadcaster each Kyiv and Moscow would wish to make painful compromises to convey the struggle to an finish. For Ukraine, that intended accepting no less than a few of Russia’s good points.
“What are they anticipating? That Russia will go away Donbas and Luhansk? Or that they’re going to go away Crimea? No, that’s totally unrealistic. Everyone is aware of that,” Fico endured.
The Donbas and Luhansk are territories in jap Ukraine, over portions of which Russia received keep an eye on in 2014, and from the place it has expanded its territorial good points since launching its full-scale invasion in 2022. Crimea used to be additionally captured, and annexed, in 2014.
Extensively noticed as a pro-Kremlin determine, Fico received election in October, having run on a promise that he would block additional army enhance for Ukraine – which he informed the radio interviewer were below the “general keep an eye on of the USA” since 2014, when Ukrainians overthrew their pro-Moscow president Viktor Yanukovich.
Within the Eu Union, he’s carefully aligned with Hungary’s Victor Orban and has been very open about his intentions to dam Ukraine’s bid to enroll in the EU and NATO. That blunt message could be repeated when he meets his Ukrainian counterpart, Denys Shmyhal, on Wednesday within the border the town of Uzhhorod, he mentioned.
“I will be able to inform him that I’m totally towards Ukraine’s NATO club and that I will be able to veto it, since the best factor that will result in is a 3rd Global Battle.”
In a reversal of the coverage of his predecessor, which noticed Ukraine obtain an air protection gadget and fighter jets from Slovakia, in addition to different army support, Fico additionally promised to inform his Ukrainian host that “he might not be getting any guns from the Slovak Military” or from “Slovakia’s state stockpiles.”
As a substitute, he says he would convey an “be offering of humanitarian assist.”
Shmyhal’s workplace has now not answered to a The Gentleman Report enquiry about whether or not the seek advice from will nonetheless cross forward.
Bringing an excessively other kind of message Monday to Ukraine used to be Poland’s new High Minister Donald Tusk, who met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv.
The 2 leaders mentioned imaginable joint palms manufacturing, in addition to what Zelensky referred to in a observation from his workplace as “a brand new type of our cooperation – aimed toward a bigger scale of palms purchases for Ukrainian wishes,” despite the fact that no additional main points got.
Tusk informed his host Poland would attempt to assist Ukraine’s accession to the EU, “in order that Ukraine’s complete club within the Eu Union turns into a truth once imaginable.”
The 2 males additionally expressed self belief that they may reach lasting answers to disputes over Ukrainian grain exports and permit-free get right of entry to to the Eu Union for Ukrainian truck drivers, which resulted in blockades for plenty of weeks at border crossings between the 2 nations.
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