A gesture of desperation, or why Fitso met Putin in Moscow

Exclusive. On Sunday, December 22, the Prime Minister of Slovakia, Robert Fico, flew to Moscow and met with the Russian dictator. At the end of his visit to Russia, he said that Putin confirmed his readiness to continue supplying gas to the West.

Dictator Putin with Prime Minister of Slovakia Robert Fico

A few days earlier, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic announced Fico's visit to Moscow due to gas transit. "As I unofficially learned, on Monday Fico will go to Putin as the leader of the EU country - I don't need to tell you what kind of reaction this will meet from other leaders, and this complicates the situation even more," said the hybrid president of Serbia, in particular, observing after the collapse of Ivanishviliev Georgia.

The Kremlin did not officially announce the visit. The press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Peskov, stated that Fico's visit was planned a few days ago. At the same time, he could not answer what exactly Putin and Fico will discuss, noting that "it is easy to assume" that the discussion will include gas.

As a reminder, the transit of Russian gas through the territory of Ukraine will cease from January 1 due to the expiration of the relevant agreement with Gazprom. At a press conference in Brussels on December 19, the President of Ukraine stated that the country would not extend the aforementioned agreement. "We will not be engaged in extending the transit of Russian gas. We will not allow opportunities to earn additional billions on our blood, on the lives of our citizens. And every country in the world that could get something cheap from Russia will become 100% dependent on Russia tomorrow or in a month or an hour. This is their policy, so we will not continue the transit of Russian gas," said Vladimir Zelensky.

After the explosion of "Nord Stream" and "Nord Stream - 2", as well as the suspension of pumping through the Yamal - Europe gas pipeline, the transit line through Ukraine remains the only route for the supply of Russian gas to Central Europe. The main buyers are primarily Slovakia, Austria and Hungary, Italy, the Czech Republic, Croatia and Slovenia need it to a lesser extent. However, the European Union has already declared that they will be able to do without Russian gas, which came via the Ukrainian route.

This is the first visit of the Slovak leader to Moscow after the beginning of the large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. After February 2022, Western politicians visit Russia extremely rarely. In the last three years, Chancellor of Austria Karl Nehammer, Prime Ministers of Slovakia and Hungary Robert Fico and Viktor Orban have visited Moscow. At the same time, the meeting between Putin and the head of the Austrian government took place without handshakes and joint photos. "This is not a friendly visit. I just came from Ukraine and saw with my own eyes the immeasurable suffering caused by the Russian aggressive war," said Karl Nehammer. At Vienna's request, the meeting was held without minutes and a final statement to the press.

By the way, Putin's meeting with the Prime Minister of Slovakia, Robert Fico, was essentially unfriendly.

"We insisted for a long time that gas is a powerful geopolitical weapon, but it turned out that this weapon was turned against us, since in the conditions of dominance in Russia, the raw economy, multiplied by Western capitalist ethics, is not the geopolitical interests of the country, but the extraction of profit. Meanwhile, energy carriers could become a means of strengthening our positions if we were to follow the path of creating a Pan-Slavic Union, a powerful ideology reflecting the principles of Russian-Slavic civilization, an alternative Western social and economic system based on the ideas of State-Citizen Socialism , powerful industrial economy, etc. Then, indeed, it would be possible to play for the collapse of the EU, or, at least, for the separation of the countries of Eastern Europe from it. But since we don't have any of this, we will simply "drive" gas to Central Europe. Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic will continue to receive it, while simultaneously fulfilling EU regulations and helping Ukraine. And for the purposes of propaganda, we will tell you what kind of powerful allies we have in Europe, such as Orban and Fico, who for good discounts on gas will simply "not talk much" about Russia, and if the discounts are very good, they will also assure us of eternal love and friendship", — пишет, for example, the director of the Institute of Russian-Slavic Studies named after N.Ya. Danylevsky Alexander Burenkov.

According to Burenkov, the dependence of Hungary, Slovakia and even Austria on Russian gas is high, but none of these countries determines the general agenda of the EU and is not able to change it. In this connection, we will only add that these countries do not have such a desire. The other day, for example, the government of Slovakia approved the sending of another batch of material and technical aid of a humanitarian nature to Ukraine. In particular, systems for demining the BOZENA territory and devices for remote detection of toxic chemicals will be transferred, to which spare parts are attached.

Fico stated that the meeting with Putin was a "response" to the intention
Ukraine will stop the transit of Russian gas to Europe. However, in Russia itself they admit that, as it was supposed, he did not achieve anything. Apparently, Fitso, who in the past was reasonably suspected of ties to the Italian Ndrangheta (Calabrian mafia), came to Moscow to "punish" Zelensky. Let him get nervous. It is very similar to a gesture of desperation.

The Kremlin, however, won, at least because it turned out to be a beautiful picture for propaganda. Such visits by European leaders harm the security of Ukraine and all of Europe, as they weaken Putin's international isolation and encourage him to further escalation.

Vera Perovskaya