Prime Minister Robert Fico welcomes the meeting in response to the "failed" European strategy to weaken Russia militarily.
MADRID, 16 (EUROPA PRESS)
Slovak President Peter Pellegrini hailed last Friday's summit between US and Russian leaders Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin as a significant step toward ending the war in Ukraine; a message echoed by the country's Prime Minister, Robert Fico, who nevertheless took the opportunity to highlight the contrast between this meeting and the "failed strategy" of pressure against Moscow undertaken by the European Union.
In a video posted on his Facebook account, Fico — like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, known for his affinity for Russia — stated that "the coming days will determine whether the main actors in the European Union will support this process and lead the Ukrainian conflict to a rapid solution, or whether the failed European strategy of trying to weaken Russia through this conflict with all kinds of financial, political or military assistance will continue."
After asserting, as Russia also defends, that the conflict in Ukraine "has historical roots," Fico not only called for security guarantees for Ukraine, but also for Moscow. In general terms, he concluded, the format and conduct of the Alaska summit "fully fit with Slovakia's sovereign foreign policy."
For his part, Pellegrini stated that the Alaska summit "represents an important milestone toward achieving a lasting and sustainable peace in Ukraine." Although the Slovak president acknowledged that the meeting between Putin and Trump "did not yield immediate and tangible results," he argued that its most important significance "is that it happened" and, in doing so, "created an opportunity to reopen channels of dialogue" between all parties.
"The constructive atmosphere of mutual respect in which the meeting took place offers a promising basis for continued diplomatic cooperation. I hope that these efforts will ultimately lead to the most important goal: the cessation of hostilities in Ukraine and an end to the suffering and loss of innocent lives," the president concluded.
