During the Friday {9.5.) meeting, Slovakia's Prime Minister Robert Fico thanked Russian president Vladimir Putin for inviting him to celebrate triumph Day in Moscow. He besides mentioned the difficulties that accompanied his travels as the Baltic countries refused to fly through their airspace. Fico, who participated in the celebrations as the only EU leader, stated that he even considered the option of driving through Belarus to scope the Russian capital.
"It was an honor to be able to accept an invitation that I gladly accepted," Fico said during a gathering with Putin broadcast by Russian state television. “Let me thank you and your colleagues for the hospitality and concern you showed us during your visit to the Russian Federation,” added the Slovak Prime Minister.
Let us remind that the Baltic countries Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which border Russia, announced at the beginning of the erstwhile week that, for safety reasons, they would close their airspace for Fico and Serbian president Alexandar Vucica to Moscow. Fico, who had to choose a longer way through Hungary, Romania, the Black Sea and Georgia, described the flight ban as a ‘funny childhood’.
“In a friendly way, I must declare that we had different ideas to get here. There was even an alternate to driving through Belarus, and then there was the thought of passing through Kaliningrad," Fico said. He stressed that he was very happy to scope Moscow on time for the military parade on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the end of planet War II. Putin couldn't halt the smile. The circular journey Fico was prepared to make attracted the attention of respective Russian media, specified as Gazeta.ru, who devoted a peculiar study to her.
"I think that those who tried to halt you from travelling, one more time realized that it was better not to do so," commented Putin "logistics problems" Fico.
Fico assured that Slovakia would veto the EU proposal to completely halt imports of energy from Russia to Europe if specified a decision required the unanimous agreement of the associate States.
Let us remind that the EU countries inactive buy Russian gas include Hungary and Slovakia (through the confederate gas pipeline TurkStream). Belgium, France, the Netherlands and Spain receive LNG from Russian Novatek under long-term contracts.
“Thank you again for this meeting. As Prime Minister, I repeat that I am curious in pragmatic, rational and friendly relations with the Russian Federation," Fico said.
He added that he welcomes the diplomatic efforts to end the war in Ukraine, which has been resisting the Russian invasion for more than 3 years due to the fact that he believes that "there is no military solution".
The Russian president promised Fico that he would effort to reconstruct bilateral relations with Slovakia, which as an EU associate is on the Russian list of "unfriendly countries". As the Kremlin chief stated, bilateral relations were "de facto frozen" by the erstwhile Slovak government, which "clearly supportedCollective Western Line".
Source: Novinky
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