Slovakia rejects Ukraine’s NATO membership and wants to veto it if necessary. Populist Prime Minister Robert Fico said this on Saturday on the public radio station RTVS.
Fico will meet with his Ukrainian counterpart Denys Shmyhal in the border town of Uzhgorod on Wednesday to present a new humanitarian aid package. At the same time, he also wants to make clear to him the Slovak positions regarding the war with Russia. These do not match Kyiv’s wishes.
“I’m going to tell him that we will block Ukraine’s accession to the NATO alliance, because that would be nothing other than the basis for a Third World War,” Fico said. On the other hand, he is not against joining the European Union, provided that Ukraine meets the same conditions as other candidate members.
Fico, who is labeled pro-Kremlin by opponents, recently emphasized that Slovakia will no longer supply the neighboring country with weapons from its own army stockpile for the fight against the Russian invasion forces. The new government in Bratislava still allows arms sales by Slovak manufacturers.