2024-10-09 08:11:00
Ukraine’s accession to the European Union (EU) is not the only Kiev procedure to arouse reluctance from some member states. His request to NATO, made several months after the Russian invasion, worried some European leaders, including Robert Fico. In an interview with state radio on Sunday, the Slovak prime minister expressed his intention to oppose Ukraine’s membership of NATO, “a good basis for a third world war.”
Since Ukraine officially submitted its application to NATO at the end of September 2022, several EU member states have been reluctant. While the now former Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, replaced last week by the Dutchman Mark Rutte, has declared several times that Kiev will be invited to join the alliance “when the allies agree and the” conditions are met “, countries such as Germany and the United States have expressed reservations, especially due to the fear of an escalation of the conflict with Russia.
Always financed and equipped but never officially invited
The alliance’s new leader, Mark Rutte, quickly pledged to strengthen Western support for Ukraine. France, initially cautious, has recently adopted a more favorable position, while countries in Eastern Europe and the Baltic states strongly support Ukraine’s membership. However, the Eastern European country has not yet received an official invitation and Victor Orban’s Hungary as well as Robert Fico’s Slovakia have continuously rejected the scenario.
Viktor Orban, who also vetoed Ukraine’s EU membership before having his hand forced by the other 26 member states, says “there are no conditions to start accession negotiations with Kiev”. In his opinion, the EU should offer Ukraine a “strategic partnership” before considering integration negotiations.
His Slovakian counterpart, Robert Fico, who survived an attack last May, is even more firm. Interviewed by broadcaster STVR on Sunday, he promised that he would not allow Ukraine to become a member of NATO while he was in office. A further blow to Ukrainian ambitions to join the transatlantic alliance.
“I will ask the legislators under my control as chairman of the Smer party to never accept Ukraine’s membership in NATO,” he said. Robert Fico believes that such an approach “would be a good basis for a third world war.” Highly critical of the West and its support, both financial and military, since the Russian invasion in February 2022, he reiterated his complaints on Sunday.
“In a neighboring country there is a military conflict in which Slavs are killing each other, and Europe significantly supports this massacre, which I simply don’t understand,” he denounced. Like Viktor Orban, Fico has called since his election campaign to favor “diplomatic solutions”. “Everyone thinks that through Ukraine we will bring the Russians to their knees, but this problem cannot be solved militarily,” reiterated the Smer-SD leader.
Fico in Moscow in May 2025
During his election campaign, he promised in particular to “never send a single munition to Ukraine again”, thus opposing the delivery of weapons and military equipment to Kiev. At the same time, he criticized the sanctions imposed on Russia after the annexation of Crimea, saying that the measures “harmed mainly the populations and not the regime.”
However, a Slovakian newspaper revealed last week that under the Fico government exports of weapons, ammunition and other equipment have reached around 112 million euros. Other local media say the executive has filed criminal complaints against members of the previous government over donations of fighter jets to Kiev.
His statements came the day before the meeting with the Ukrainian Prime Minister, Denys Chmyhal, with whom he demonstrated transparency. “This is something I have said openly to Prime Minister Chmyhal, to the Americans and to everyone,” he added on Sunday.
Often considered one of Moscow’s closest allies, Robert Fico, who served as Prime Minister twice, from 2006 to 2010 and from 2012 to 2018, announced his trip to the Russian capital in May 2025. He described the commemorations planned by Russia for Russia’s 80th anniversary. the end of the Second World War “demonstration for peace”.
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