{"id":401829,"date":"2024-10-31T16:14:33","date_gmt":"2024-10-31T15:14:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2024\/10\/31\/robert-fico-intervista-tv-russa-ucraina\/"},"modified":"2024-11-06T19:00:27","modified_gmt":"2024-11-06T18:00:27","slug":"slovak-pm-fico-at-center-of-controversy-for-appearing-on-russian-tv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2024\/10\/31\/slovak-pm-fico-at-center-of-controversy-for-appearing-on-russian-tv\/","title":{"rendered":"Slovak PM Fico at center of controversy for appearing on Russian TV"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – It is no longer just Viktor Orb\u00e1n<\/strong> who is undermining the unity of the Twenty-Seven vis-\u00e0-vis Vladimir Putin<\/strong>‘s Russia. Now the Kremlin’s Trojan horses in the EU<\/strong> are at least two, as the Hungarian premier has been joined by his Slovak counterpart Robert Fico<\/strong>. Who ended up at the centre of a political storm<\/strong> (domestic and international) for an interview he gave to the TV station Rossija 1<\/strong>, one of the Russian regime’s propaganda channels, in which he disavowed the position of the Western partners<\/strong> with respect to the war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Former prime minister Igor Matovi\u010d<\/strong>, a member of Slovakia, a populist centre-right opposition party, defined him<\/a> “a horrible treacherous<\/p>\n

ferret.” The premier and leader of SMER<\/strong>\u2014a party (from which Slovakia’s eternal commissioner Maro\u0161 \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d<\/strong> also comes) that calls itself progressive but was suspended from the Socialist Europeans<\/strong> in October 2023 following the erosion of the rule of law<\/a> in Bratislava\u2014Robert Fico appeared<\/a> Wednesday (Oct. 30) on the 60 Minutes<\/em> political talk show hosted on Rossija 1 by Olga Skabeeva<\/strong>. The journalist, who is under sanctions from the EU and the United States, is also known as “the iron doll of Putin’s TV<\/strong>” for her harsh criticism of Russian opposition and Western countries.<\/p>\n

In his interview, the Slovak chief executive accused what is technically his Western allies of <\/span>“prolonging the war” in Ukraine<\/strong> through their support for Kyiv, dismissed as “<\/span>ineffective<\/strong>” the <\/span>restrictive measures<\/strong> imposed against Moscow and declared himself <\/span>ready to negotiate with Putin himself<\/strong> to seek a solution to the conflict.<\/span> “The EU says to the Ukrainians: Here are your weapons, here is your money, fight, just don’t bother us<\/strong>, we don’t want to have anything more to do with this war,” Fico said in a pre-recorded message, adding that he is considering travelling to the Russian capital<\/strong> next May 9 to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany<\/strong> in World War II (in the bloody campaign on the Eastern Front, which the Russians call the Great Patriotic War and which saw the Red Army drive back the Wehrmacht<\/i> as far as Berlin).<\/p>\n

As expected, Fico’s appearance on the Putin regime’s propaganda channels has uncovered a quagmire in Slovak politics, with the <\/span>opposition taking to the barricades<\/strong> to attack the premier.<\/span> Progressive Slovakia’s leader, Michal \u0160ime\u010dka<\/strong>, has labelled<\/a> Fico’s interview as a “disgrace,” while Freedom and Solidarity MP Juraj Kr\u00fapa<\/strong> condemned it<\/a> as an “unprecedented” gesture.<\/p>\n

But the echo of Fico’s words has crossed Slovak borders. For Czech MEP Danu\u0161e Nerudov\u00e1 <\/strong>(EPP), the head of the government in Bratislava confirmed<\/a> to be “a threat to European security<\/strong>.” And, of course, Ukraine didn’t take it well either: “Fico can move to Moscow<\/strong> if he loves Russia so much,” commented<\/a> on X MP Oleksiy Goncharenko<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In an interview with a pro-Kremlin journalist sanctioned by Western administrations, the leader of the Bratislava government criticized EU support for Ukrainian resistance and questioned restrictive measures taken against Moscow<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7876,"featured_media":401796,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"0","show_view_counter":"0","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"","hide":""},"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1649,25707],"tags":[26458,25802,28233,26359,28800],"class_list":["post-401829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-non-categorizzato","category-world-politics","tag-robert-fico-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7876"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401829"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401829\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":401833,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401829\/revisions\/401833"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}