Robert Fico said argued that the West’s current treatment of Moscow would fail

The West is deliberately fueling the fighting in Ukraine because its ultimate goal is to weaken Russia, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has said.

In an interview with Slovak broadcaster STVR on Sunday, Fico expressed concern over the EU’s increasing involvement in the ongoing hostilities between Moscow and Kiev, arguing that the conflict cannot be resolved on the battlefield.

“There is a military conflict in a neighboring country where Slavs are killing each other, and Europe is significantly supporting this killing, which I just don’t understand,” Fico said. He added that the fighting “continues only because it is being strongly supported by the West.”

“The sooner it ends, the better it will be,” he stressed, arguing that the Western efforts to use the conflict to defeat Moscow would fail.

“Everyone thinks that through Ukraine we will bring the Russians to their knees, but this Russophobia does not work. It turns out that this problem cannot be solved militarily,” Fico stated.

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Fico, a longtime critic of Western military aid to Kiev, promised to block Ukraine from ever joining NATO. Such a step could lay the groundwork for a potential World War III, he argued.

After winning the parliamentary election last year, Fico’s Smer-SD party has halted the delivery of weapons to Ukraine and has repeatedly called for a diplomatic resolution of the conflict. He pledged to restore trade and political ties with Moscow once the fighting ends, arguing that “the EU needs Russia, and Russia needs the EU.”

Moscow has denounced Western aid to Kiev, insisting that no amount of foreign aid would stop its troops in Ukraine.