Putin meets Slovakia’s Fico in a rare visit by an EU leader since the invasion

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Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico met Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Sunday, marking one of the few meetings the Russian President has had with an EU leader since he ordered a full-scale attack on Ukraine nearly three years ago. before.

The visit, which was not announced in advance but was confirmed by the Kremlin on Sunday when it shared a video of Fico shaking hands with Putin, came amid tensions between Slovakia and Ukraine over energy security.

The visit comes after a tense meeting between Fico and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Brussels on Thursday to discuss Kyiv’s plan to block Russian gas transit through its territory from early 2025.

Kyiv’s threat presents a serious challenge to Slovakia, one of three EU countries, along with Hungary and Austria, that remains heavily dependent on Russian gas piped through Ukraine.

Russian and Western politicians are also increasing contact before the US presidential inauguration next January.

“President Putin said he wanted to meet with me as soon as possible,” Trump said Sunday. “We have to end that war.”

Trump claimed he could find a solution to the conflict and achieve a ceasefire in Ukraine within “a day,” raising the possibility that he could ask Kyiv to accept a significantly more favorable peace deal. Tell Moscow.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke with Putin by phone last month for the first time in two years, as European leaders prepare for what could happen at the start of Trump’s second term and the held discussions on how to maintain support for Ukraine.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a Russian state television journalist that Fico’s visit had been planned several days ago. He added that Putin and Fico are meeting face-to-face and will likely discuss current issues as well as the transit of Russian gas through Ukraine.

Fico earlier this week challenged Ukraine’s plan to cut off gas supplies, questioning why it had the “right to harm the national economic interests” of an EU member state.

He also rejected Kyiv’s claim that Slovakia earns about $500 million a year by trading cheaper Russian gas, some of which is then also shipped from Slovakia to neighboring Czech Republic.

Fico, who survived an assassination attempt this year, has taken a friendlier stance towards Moscow than other EU heads of state.

The Prime Minister of Slovakia opposes the application of Western sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. His stance is similar to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in neighboring Hungary, who also visited Moscow in July this year, sparking an outcry from his counterparts across Europe.

Orbán said on Saturday that he also planned further negotiations with both Moscow and Kyiv to help maintain gas flows, telling journalists that Budapest was “trying to bluff” the gas relabelling was Hungary at the time this gas entered Ukrainian territory.

Orbán’s plan involves Hungarian or other EU companies buying Russian gas directly at the Ukraine-Russia border and then paying transit fees to Kyiv. Neither Brussels nor Kiev approved this proposal.

Sunday’s visit marked the first face-to-face meeting between Putin and Fico in eight years, state news agency Tass reported.

Additional reporting by Steff Chávez in New York