EU state’s leader says he’s ready to meet Putin

Robert Fico has told Russian television that he feels it is his “personal duty” to visit Moscow next year

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has said that he is ready to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin “without hesitation” and that he believes the West will soon “reassess” its military support for Ukraine.

Speaking to Russia’s Rossiya-1 TV network, Fico said that he would be “very pleased” to attend Victory Day celebrations in Moscow next May, when Russia marks “the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II and, above all, the victory over Nazism. I feel it is my personal duty.”

Meanwhile, Fico said that he is prepared to meet Putin “without hesitation.” Telling interviewer Olga Skabeyeva that he “even met him when he was prime minister, before he became president,” the Slovak leftist said that he was “deadly serious” about a face-to-face conversation with Putin.

Fico was elected prime minister of Slovakia for the third time last year, and immediately suspended the country’s military aid to Ukraine. Along with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, he has repeatedly called for a diplomatic solution to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and last week condemned the EU’s approval of a €35 billion ($38 billion) loan to Ukraine, backed up by revenues from frozen Russian assets held in Brussels.

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Fico has also promised to veto Ukraine’s accession to NATO, arguing that such a move would trigger a third world war.

While Western weapons continue to flow into Ukraine, Fico told Skabeyeva that he believes “common sense will soon prevail, and we will begin to reassess the military conflict in Ukraine.”

“I support any plans with the word ‘peace’ in them – peace plans,” he said, adding that “it is far better to negotiate for two years than to allow soldiers to kill each other for two years.”

The Kremlin maintains that it is open to any peace plan that involves Kiev committing to military neutrality and withdrawing its forces from Russian territory, including Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye Regions. Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, however, insists that his ten-point ‘peace formula’ is the only viable roadmap to resolving the conflict.

Under this plan, which Moscow has dismissed as “delusional,” Russia would restore Ukraine’s 1991 borders, pay reparations to Kiev, and hand its own officials over to face war crimes tribunals.

READ MORE: Seven NATO members oppose Ukraine membership – Politico

Zelensky has also floated a ‘victory plan’, claiming that if given an invitation to join NATO, long-range missiles, and Western boots on the ground, his forces can defeat Russia.

”If someone wanted to escalate tensions, that is exactly what he would say,” Fico remarked on Zelensky’s proposal.