The Prime Minister of Slovakia, Robert Fico, and the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, spoke on Sunday about energy, the war in Ukraine and the bilateral relationship, the Kremlin reported this Monday.
“They managed to talk about bilateral relations, significantly affected by the actions of the previous Slovak authorities. They also talked about energy and gas issues,” Russian Presidency spokesman Dmitri Peskov said at his daily press conference.
In addition, they “exchanged opinions on the Ukrainian issue.” “President Putin conveyed to his interlocutor his vision of the current situation on the battlefield,” Peskov said. According to the Kremlin, the conversation between the two leaders was “quite substantive.”
Fico arrived in Moscow on Sunday afternoon as part of an unannounced visit and was received by Putin in the Kremlin.
The Slovak Prime Minister assured on Friday that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had offered him $500 million of Russian assets frozen by sanctions in exchange for his support for eventual entry into NATO. “He asked me if I would vote for (Ukraine’s) membership in NATO if he gave me 500 million euros of Russian assets,” he said in a video posted on the social network Facebook.
Fico and Zelensky met on Thursday at the summit of European Union leaders held in Brussels and during which the Ukrainian leader insisted that his country will cut off the transit of Russian gas to Europe, a measure that could harm Slovakia.
In this regard, Fico, whose country imports 3 billion cubic meters each year from the Russian gas monopoly Gazprom, warned that response measures could be taken against Ukraine.
Slovakia supplies electricity to Ukraine, whose energy infrastructure is badly damaged by Russian attacks, and provides humanitarian aid and demining equipment. Additionally, Slovakia can reverse the flow of gas to supply Ukraine’s fuel needs, something Fico threatened to review if gas transit is cut off.
