Statements of the Prime Minister Robert Fico:
Dear friends, as it is customary to say in Slovakia at this time of year, I wish you a pleasant period between holidays. In all my foreign trips and summits I have attended since the assassination, I have consistently raised the peace agenda and talked about the possibilities of ending the war in Ukraine. And I will continue to do so in January when I make an official visit to Turkey, at the Davos Forum or when I meet the Holy Father in the Vatican in February. I am not, nor do I want to be, one of the Western politicians who openly support the war. I will never agree to Slavs killing each other in the name of any geopolitical interests and efforts to weaken and distract Russia. It is incomprehensible to me that the Ukrainian President refuses even a ceasefire. It is incomprehensible to me that the Ukrainian political leadership is dragging the whole country into disaster, because Ukraine’s negotiating position is getting worse every day, and Ukraine will pay a huge price for this Western adventure in the form of the loss of territory and the presence of foreign troops. In addition to pressing for a ceasefire and the start of peace negotiations, I also offer Slovakia as a suitable country to organize any peace negotiations at any level. A negotiation at the level of, for example, ministers or members of the national parliaments involved, would also be a recognition of Slovakia as a sovereign country. I have also spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin on this subject, and I therefore welcome his positive reaction. I have pursued and will continue to pursue a sovereign Slovak foreign policy oriented towards all four cardinal points of the world, while fully respecting the obligations that result, among other things, from our membership in the European Union and NATO. Those who follow my foreign policy activities and their outcomes must see that we are a small but extremely active country in international relations, based on the principles of respect for international law, non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries and respect for the path that individual countries choose to follow in managing their internal affairs. And nothing will change this, neither the loudmouths in Bratislava cafés, nor the aggressive liberal media, or the Czech political scene, which is increasingly inappropriately interfering in our sovereign internal affairs. So if anyone approaches us with an interest in organizing any kind of peace talks in Slovakia on the Ukrainian-Russian conflict, they can count on our hospitality. Let me return once again to the exchange I had with President Zelensky of Ukraine at the European Union summit. It was a confidential meeting, and the participants‘ mobile phones were taken away, yet President Zelensky attacked me at a public press conference, informed the public about the content of our conflict and continued to do so in a lengthy post on social media, where he was even more elegant and insolent. President Zelensky, I understand the pressure you are under. I understand that, for self-serving political and power reasons, the West gives you practically anything you ask for, but I am not your subordinate servant who cannot speak his own mind and who has a duty only to help you and not to expect anything from you. I will start by thanking the Deputy Prime Minister, Denisa Sakova, the management of the Slovak Gas Industry and others who have done everything possible to ensure that we will have enough gas at reasonable prices in 2025. It is already known that the Government has decided to maintain gas prices for electricity at this year’s level. And with that, the good news ends. Ukrainian President Zelensky announced at the summit in Brussels that Ukraine will no longer transport any gas to Slovakia after 1 January 2025, because, according to him, wherever the gas comes from, it will always be Russian gas.
We are still offering the option, for example, to buy gas at the Russian-Ukrainian border and to ask Ukraine to transport it as our Slovak gas to the territory of Slovakia, or there are other scenarios as well, but President Zelensky will does not even want to hear them. He will not allow Slovakia or anyone else to pay Russia for gas and thus finance Russian war expenses. Full stop. Well, it´s a complete nonsense, but we will have to start getting used to that with the Ukrainian president. What will this purely political decision by the Ukrainian President cause and what is behind it? Is it a principled attitude? Oh, no. He is just lining the pockets of others at the expense of the Member States of the European Union. And I am shocked that the whole of Europe is buying it. Actually, I am not even shocked when I see the billions that go to Ukraine and nobody cares how much of it ends up in corrupt mechanisms.

Zdroj: Online Tu a Teraz