Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico held one-on-one talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday as part of a bid to secure continued access to cheap Russian fossil fuels.
Fico’s decision to travel to Russia for trade talks will prove controversial among his fellow EU leaders, and defies the bloc’s public commitments to end its reliance on Moscow for gas imports.
Fico said in a post on Facebook that he and Putin had “exchanged views on the military situation in Ukraine, the possibility of an early peaceful end to the war, and mutual relations between the Slovak Republic and the Russian Federation, which I intend to standardize.”
The leftist-populist Slovak politician arrived in the country for what Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov called a “working visit,” posed for pictures and shook hands with Putin.
Fico said the meeting “was a reaction to Ukrainian President V. Zelensky, who answered my personal question on Thursday that he is against any transit of gas through Ukraine to our territory.”
Fico said Putin “confirmed Russia’s readiness to continue supplying gas to Slovakia,” although that will ultimately depend on Kyiv’s decision.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine almost three years ago, only two other EU heads of government have visited Putin — Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Both trips were widely condemned, with the EU’s executive arm publicly rebuking Orbán’s self-declared peace mission and insisting he had no mandate to negotiate.
While Fico’s trip was not announced in advance by the Slovak government, Serbian President Aleksandr Vučić hinted the Slovak leader could travel to Moscow on Monday to discuss gas purchases. “I don’t have to tell you what kind of reaction [this] will cause among other European leaders from the EU,” he said.
In his Facebook post, Fico said that “the highest representatives” were informed of his trip in advance.
A spokesperson for the European Commission was not immediately available to comment. The Council confirmed that European Council President António Costa had been notified in advance, but declined to comment further on Fico’s visit.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has ruled out extending an agreement with Russian state energy company Gazprom that allows it to export natural gas via the country’s pipeline network to Slovakia, Hungary and other Central European countries. Putin has also previously said he expects the contract to come to an end.
Fico, who along with Orbán has consistently been one of the most Russia-friendly leaders in the EU, had promised “very intense” negotiations behind the scenes to avoid that deadline. A senior advisor to Zelenskyy told POLITICO on Saturday that Kyiv estimates Slovakia earns around half a billion dollars a year from access to discounted Russian gas.
Fico has repeatedly praised Russia and Putin, while the Kremlin has been equally solicitous in response, with Peskov describing Fico’s May 2024 assassination attempt as a “great tragedy” and bidding him a “speedy recovery.”
