Putin open to accepting Slovakia as ‘neutral site’ for Ukraine talks

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has said that he was open to accepting Slovakia’s offer as a place for peace negotiations with Ukraine.

Putin’s comments follow Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico’s surprise and controversial visit to Moscow on Sunday, which is widely seen as a blow to the EU bloc’s unity against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

”He first and foremost spoke about a peaceful settlement in Ukraine. He was pushing it. I don’t know what claims could be made against him by Europe or anyone else. But he spoke about this and focused his attention on this,” the Russian leader said at a briefing in St. Petersburg on Thursday.

Putin added that Fico offered to host peace talks with Ukraine in Slovakia, an option Russia will consider, as Slovakia’s position on the fighting in Ukraine is “acceptable” for Moscow.

“Slovakia takes a neutral position from our point of view; this position is neutral, and this is an acceptable option for us,” Putin said.

Slovakia, one of the countries that relies heavily on Russian gas, is both a NATO and European Union member.

After Ukraine confirmed that it would not extend a contract allowing the transit of Russian gas that expires at the end of the year, Slovakia raised concerns about the prospect of losing gas supplies.

Fico said he visited Moscow because of Kyiv’s unwillingness to extend the gas deliveries via Ukraine after speaking about it with Volodymr Zelenskyy at a summit in Brussels last week, a possibility that the Ukrainian head of state resolutely rejected.

The Slovakian prime minister is supported by coalition partners from the Slovak National Party. According to Deputy Prime Minister Tomáš Taraba, negotiations with Vladimir Putin are a “solution to Slovakia’s basic problem of having cheap gas supplies available.”

Fico faces backlash over Moscow visit

On Monday, around 3,000 people, holding various placards and flags of Ukraine, NATO, and EU, gathered in the Square of Freedom in Bratislava in front of the government office, shouting “Traitor” and “Shame” in protest over Fico’s Moscow visit.

The protest ‘Enough of Russia’ was organised by the civil association Mier Ukraine. Several opposition parties in the country also denounced the visit and called it a betrayal of allies.

“Prime Minister Fico, by his way to Moscow, has served Vladimir Putin as a propaganda tool and has actually used the whole of Slovakia, which has thus become an instrument of Russian propaganda,” said Michal Šimecka, a member of the National Assembly and leader of the ‘Progressive Slovensko’ opposition coalition movement.

“All he has achieved is an international embarrassment for our country and a diminution of our credibility in the eyes of our key partners,” Šimecka said at a press briefing on Monday.

The Kremlin has said that one of the conditions to resume gas shipments to Europe through Ukraine, due to expire this year, would be Kyiv’s withdrawal from the arbitration dispute with Russia’s state gas company Gazprom.

Video editor • Jerry Fisayo-Bambi