Slovakia confirmed this Friday that it was ready to host peace talks on Ukraine. “We offer Slovak soil for such negotiations,” Foreign Minister Juraj Blanar said on Facebook overnight from Thursday to Friday, almost three years after the start of the Russian assault.
According to him, they must take place “with the participation of all parties and therefore also of Russia”, unlike the summit in June in Switzerland. On Thursday, Vladimir Putin affirmed that Slovakia, whose “neutral position” he had praised, had offered itself as a sort of “platform” for possible negotiations.
A close friend of Putin
“We consider the Russian president's statement as a positive signal to end this war, bloodshed and destruction as quickly as possible,” wrote Juraj Blanar. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, one of the very few European leaders remaining close to the Kremlin, met Vladimir Putin in Moscow on December 22, provoking the anger of kyiv.
According to the Slovak Foreign Minister, Bratislava informed its “Ukrainian partners” in October of its availability for peace negotiations. Although Slovakia is a member of the European Union and NATO, it has moved closer to Russia, espousing the Hungarian position, since the return to power of nationalist Robert Fico in the fall of 2023.
Robert Fico has stopped all military aid to Ukraine and accuses kyiv of endangering his country's supply of Russian gas, which he wishes to continue to buy. Ukraine announced last summer that it would not renew its contract with Russia until the end of the year to transport Russian gas to Europe via its extensive network of gas pipelines. No solution has yet been found.
