2024-03-14 17:17:46
The canceled meeting of the Czech and Slovak governments is so far the most visible impact of the two states’ differing attitudes towards Ukraine. However, Robert Fico’s pro-Russian views are changing the behavior of the Czech side even behind the scenes.
Prime Minister Petr Fiala (ODS) went to Paris three weeks ago for the arms summit. It was convened by French President Emmanuel Macron and the aim was to exchange information on how the participating countries can militarily help the invaded Ukraine.
Macron initially announced the representatives of about fifteen countries, and Fiala planned to inform the others about how the Czech initiative to find ammunition for Ukraine from non-European countries continues. The head of the Czech government knew that the allies would be sitting around the table and wanted to go into details regarding the origin and price of the ammunition.
The original fifteen, however, gradually became twenty-five invited countries. And as it turned out, the head of the Slovak government, Robert Fico, was also among them.
At that moment, he had given a speech on the two-year anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine, in which he declared that the Russian ruler Vladimir Putin is “falsely demonized”. He had previously caused controversy by claiming that life in Kyiv was completely normal and that the country should not receive weapons in order not to prolong the conflict.
When Fiala learned that Fico would be sitting at the negotiating table, he decided to change the speech. Several points about the Czech initiative disappeared from it. “Yes, we crossed it out,” a source from Czech diplomacy confirmed to Aktuálně.cz. The most sensitive things were handed over by Fiala to several leaders individually.
The head of the Czech government did not want strategic information about ammunition for Ukraine to get closer to Russian ears via the Slovak prime minister. The Czech delegation was also surprised by the invitation to Paris for neutral countries, Austria and Ireland. Fico was the reason for crossing out Fial’s speech.
The Slovak Prime Minister subsequently interpreted the Paris meeting quite differently from the others. And also at the press conference after the V4 summit in Prague two days later, Robert Fico was the only prime minister who did not keep his word: despite the agreement of the leaders about what they would say about the conflict in Ukraine and that they would be brief, Fico began to explain that Kyiv cannot the war against Russia will never be won and his support is so useless.
Video: Robert Fico at the V4 summit in Prague
Strained relations between the Czech and Slovak prime ministers. Fico and Fiala did not exactly have a warm welcome | Video: Aktuálně.cz