Fico earned NATO’s ire after vowing to block the delivery of weapons to Ukraine during his latest run for office. Fico has also expressed dissatisfaction with Bratislava’s defense pact with Washington, promising to review it.
Fico has expressed fervent opposition to Ukraine’s membership in NATO, and said he believes Russia began its military operation as a result of neo-Nazis running rampant in Ukraine.
Fico has warned that Western military assistance to Ukraine will only prolong the crisis and increase the number of victims, and has accused foreign forces of meddling in the conflict, which “could have been extinguished at the very beginning.”
Fico believes anti-Russian sanctions have “negatively affected” the lives of ordinary Slovaks.
Fico has been bashed by European legacy media as a left-wing populist analogue of Hungarian right-wing populist Viktor Orban, with outlets pulling out all the stops to accuse him of “democratic backsliding” and “flouting European norms,” including over his push to reform the criminal code.
The Slovak PM has also made enemies with powerful European political and business interests, promising to launch an independent inquiry into the EU’s authoritarian pandemic-era policies.