A deputy from Slovakia's ruling party secretly met with the Russian ambassador on the same day that the country's Prime Minister Robert Fico was shot.
Deputy from the ruling Smer party Tibor Gašpar secretly met in the Slovak parliament on May 15 with the Russian Ambassador to Slovakia Igor Bratchikov.
Euractiv writes about this.
“The presence of the ambassador in the parliament building, which took place before the assassination attempt on Prime Minister Robert Fico on the same day, would have gone unnoticed if it had not been brought to the attention of MP from the liberal opposition party SaS Tomasz Szalay, who saw him in the parliament premises. When asked if he called on Russia to leave Ukraine during the meeting, Gašpar replied that he did not,” the publication noted.
Tomas Szalay said that Gašpar reminded the Russian ambassador that it was the Russian Federation that violated international law by launching an invasion of Ukrainian territory, but “they also talked about the causes of the conflict.”
“This conflict also has its own cause. The genocide of the Russian-speaking population in eastern Ukraine, the lack of opportunity to use their language,” Gashpar noted to reporters after meeting with the ambassador, repeating the narrative used by Russian propagandists.
The publication recalled that Gašpar is a former police chief who has been charged with corruption and is suspected of involvement in organized crime. He is currently the head of the parliamentary committee for defense and security of Slovakia.
Also present at the meeting with the Russian ambassador were other deputies, including Samuel Migal, a member of the Hlas party, part of the ruling coalition. He said that Gašpar spoke with Bratchikov about the anniversary of the end of World War II, the war in Ukraine and possible future cooperation in the field of cybersecurity.
“I reminded the Russian ambassador of the clear position of our party “Hlas”, that we know who is the initiator of this conflict, that is, Russia, and who must defend itself,” Migal added.
In turn, the leading opposition party Progressive Slovakia (PS) believes that the current government of the country has brought Slovakia closer to undemocratic countries.
“We have long known that people in “Smer” are indifferent to Slovak interests and human lives in Ukraine. But they could at least take care of respect for the National Council of the Slovak Republic. By fraternizing with Vladimir Putin, they are putting “threaten any respect we still have among our partners abroad,” said PS MP and former Slovak Ambassador to NATO Tomas Valasek.
In addition, it was reported that Bratchikov was supposed to meet with Gašpar in parliament on May 7, but the opposition parties PS and SaS protested against the meeting and held posters in support of Ukraine. One of them read: “Russia is a terrorist state.” After which Gašpar canceled this meeting.
Recall that on Wednesday, May 15, Prime Minister of Slovakia Robert Fico was wounded during a shooting in the building where the government meeting was taking place.
It subsequently became known that 71-year-old Juraj Chintula, who was detained for the attempt on the life of the Prime Minister of Slovakia, had previously praised the pro-Russian paramilitary group Slovenský branci and took a joint photo with its members.
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