(Bratislava) Slovakia, whose nationalist Prime Minister Robert Fico visited Moscow this week, declared on Friday that it was ready to host peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, despite the hostility of Kyiv which accused it of wanting to “help” Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Posted at 11:58 a.m.
Mr. Putin said Thursday that Slovakia had offered to be a “platform” for possible peace negotiations between Russians and Ukrainians, while maintaining that his country would reach “all [ses] objectives in Ukraine”, almost three years after the start of the invasion and one month before the inauguration of American President Donald Trump whose intentions remain unclear with regard to Kyiv.
“We offer Slovak soil for such negotiations,” Slovak Foreign Minister Juraj Blanar wrote on Facebook on Friday.
“We consider the Russian president’s statement as a positive signal to end this war, bloodshed and destruction as quickly as possible,” added Juraj Blanar.
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, one of the very few European leaders who remained close to the Kremlin, and who stopped all military aid to Ukraine when he came to power in 2023, met Vladimir Putin in Moscow on December 22, angering Kyiv.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Mr. Fico on Monday of wanting to “help” Vladimir Putin “earn money to finance the war with Kyiv”, in the midst of tension around the transit of Russian gas to Eastern Europe, which Kyiv announced that he wanted to put an end to it.
The Slovak Foreign Minister said that Bratislava had informed its “Ukrainian partners” in October of its availability for peace negotiations.
PHOTO GAVRIIL GRIGOROV, SPUTNIK, ARCHIVES PROVIDED BY REUTERS
Slovak and Russian presidents Robert Fico and Valdimir Putin on December 22, 2024.
Death of a North Korean prisoner
For now, at a time when Kyiv accuses Moscow of intensifying its offensive – with the support of thousands of North Korean soldiers – and its missile attacks against Ukraine’s infrastructure, Seoul’s intelligence service has claimed that the first of these Pyongyang soldiers taken prisoner by the Ukrainian army died from these wounds.
“It has been confirmed, through an allied intelligence agency, that the North Korean soldier captured alive on December 26 had just succumbed to his worsening injuries,” the agency said. information in a press release.
The capture of a North Korean soldier was a first since Kyiv and the West reported the participation of Pyongyang troops in the conflict.
This involvement of a regular foreign army constituted a major escalation of the invasion launched almost three years ago by Vladimir Putin.
The South Korean agency announced the capture following publications reporting it, with supporting photos, by Ukrainian accounts on social networks.
According to Kyiv, 12,000 North Korean soldiers, including “around 500 officers and three generals”, are engaged in the Russian region of Kursk, of which the Ukrainian army has occupied several hundred square kilometers since August.
Ukrainian drones in Grozny
Neither Russia nor North Korea have ever confirmed the presence of this contingent alongside the Russian army.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky assured Monday that nearly 3,000 North Korean soldiers had been “killed or injured” since their engagement alongside Russia. Seoul, for its part, mentioned 1,100 “killed or injured” on Monday.
The South Korean general staff has also observed preparations which make it believe that North Korea is preparing to send new units to Russia, as reinforcements or to relieve those already fighting, in addition to drones.
A historic mutual defense treaty between Pyongyang and Moscow, signed in June, entered into force earlier this month. It provides for “immediate military aid” in the event of armed aggression by a third country.
Finally, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was indirectly at the center of investigations into the crash of an Azerbaijani airliner on Wednesday, which according to investigative evidence appeared to have been hit by a missile strike. Russian anti-aircraft aircraft during its approach to its destination airport in Grozny, before crashing while attempting an emergency landing in Kazakhstan.
Russia, which does not recognize the facts at this stage, has argued that Ukrainian drones were attacking the region at that time. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky pointed to Moscow’s “obvious” responsibility.
