There are no plans for Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico to take up an invitation to visit Kyiv on Friday to discuss the halting of Russian gas transit through Ukraine, the deputy speaker of the Slovak Parliament, Tibor Gašpar, told Russian new agency TASS on Tuesday.
Gašpar, who is currently on a visit to Moscow, said that Fico would be unable to take up Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s suggestion that he come to Kyiv on Friday to discuss Slovakia’s gas shortfall after the pair exchanged a series of increasingly tense messages online over Kyiv’s decision to stop the transit of Russian gas through its territory from 1 January.
Fico claimed on Thursday that cutting off Russian gas supplies would leave Slovakia €500 million a year out of pocket and threatened to retaliate by cutting off aid to Ukrainian refugees as well as Slovakia’s supply of power to the country.
A clearly furious Zelensky responded by calling Fico out for his “arrogant refusal” to accept “our assistance to the people of Slovakia during their adaptation to the absence of Russian gas transit”, and for resorting to “PR, lies, and loud accusations” to shift the blame for Slovakia’s energy issues “onto someone else”.
In a video message to Zelensky posted on Monday, Fico invited the Ukrainian president to meet him near the Ukrainian-Slovak border to discuss the gas transit issue, arguing that stopping the flow of Russian gas would cause “enormous damage” to not only Ukraine and Slovakia, but also to other European countries.
In a post on Monday evening, Zelensky, who in the past has suggested that Putin had “ordered Fico to open a second energy front against Ukraine”, agreed to meet with Fico but changed the location, writing simply: “Ok. Come to Kyiv on Friday.” Fico has made no public response so far.
Slovakia, which has continued to depend on Russian fossil fuel imports despite the EU’s efforts to wean itself from its dependence on Moscow, is among the EU states most affected by Kyiv’s decision on the gas transit issue.
Unlike most of his fellow EU leaders, Fico has maintained a good relationship with the Kremlin despite its invasion of Ukraine, visiting Moscow as recently as last month. By contrast, Fico has not visited Ukraine since 2022 and was last year even heard to say that there was “no war in Kyiv”.