Fico criticized the EU on the anniversary of the end of the war. He says he doesn’t have a peace plan for Ukraine

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On Wednesday’s 79th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico again criticized the European Union for not presenting a peace plan for the conflict in Ukraine. It has been resisting the Russian military invasion for more than two years.

“I am very disappointed with the European Union. The European Union was created as a peace project. I am disappointed that she is unable to offer a meaningful peace plan for this conflict currently taking place in Ukraine. It is a great manifestation of the weakness of the European Union,” Fico said after the solemn act of laying wreaths at Bratislava’s Slavín memorial, which also includes a military cemetery with the graves of more than 6,800 Red Army soldiers.

Fico also said in the speech that the EU cannot stand on its own two feet in matters of foreign policy. According to Fico, Slovakia will never agree to Slovak soldiers entering Ukraine. Their eventual sending abroad is the responsibility of Bratislava.

The Slovak prime minister, whose current government stopped military aid to Kyiv from state reserves after taking office last year, has long been pushing for a peaceful solution to the war in Ukraine. However, he did not say how to arrive at a settlement of the conflict in Ukraine. Critics of the Slovak prime minister claim that it is enough for Russian troops to withdraw from Ukraine.

Fico once again mentioned the orientation of Slovakia’s foreign policy “on all four sides of the world” and called peace the highest value. “The world is not only the West. The world also has a north, a south and undoubtedly an east. I will behave pragmatically and sovereignly as prime minister,” he said.

Slovak President Zuzana Čaputová honored the victims of the Second World War at the grave of an unknown soldier in another part of Bratislava. She wrote on Facebook that “it is our duty not only to protect the world of prosperity, freedom and democracy, but also to pass it on to our descendants in the best possible condition”. According to her, undemocratic and authoritarian regimes are also a threat to peace.