{"id":35184,"date":"2023-09-29T04:26:33","date_gmt":"2023-09-29T04:26:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/?p=35184"},"modified":"2023-09-29T04:26:36","modified_gmt":"2023-09-29T04:26:36","slug":"a-nato-country-could-soon-have-a-pro-russian-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/?p=35184","title":{"rendered":"A NATO country could soon have a pro-Russian leader"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">CNN:   <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Slovakia is getting ready to elect its fifth prime minister in just four years, and with Kremlin sympathizer Robert Fico\u2019s opposition party leading the polls, it is one being watched with alarm in the West.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Since Russia invaded Ukraine last February, Slovakia has been one of Kyiv\u2019s staunchest allies. The two countries share a border, Slovakia was the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2022\/03\/16\/europe\/slovakia-s-300s-ukraine\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">first country to send<\/a> air defenses to Ukraine and it welcomed tens of thousands of refugees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But all that could change if Fico comes to power. The former prime minister makes no secret of his sympathies towards the Kremlin and has blamed \u201cUkrainian Nazis and fascists\u201d for provoking Russia\u2019s President Vladimir Putin into launching the invasion, repeating the <a href=\"https:\/\/cnn.com\/2022\/04\/02\/world\/putin-invasion-mistakes-hitler-blake-cec\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">false narrative Putin<\/a> has used to justify his invasion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Fico has called on the Slovak government to stop supplying weapons to Kyiv, and said that if he were to become prime minister, Slovakia would \u201cnot send another round of ammunition.\u201d He is also opposed to Ukraine joining NATO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Grigorij Mese\u017enikov, a political analyst and the president of the Institute of Public Affairs, a Slovak think tank, said that like many Russia sympathizers, Fico is framing his support for Moscow as a \u201cpeace\u201d initiative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cHe and his allies argue that we shouldn\u2019t be sending weapons to Ukraine because it will make the war go on for longer.&nbsp;They are saying \u2018there will be peace if we stop sending weapons to Ukraine\u2019 because if we don\u2019t the conflict will end sooner.&nbsp;So, in essence, they are not&nbsp;pro-peace, they are pro-Russian,\u201d he told CNN.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CNN: Slovakia is getting ready to elect its fifth prime minister in just four years, and with Kremlin sympathizer Robert Fico\u2019s opposition party leading the polls, it is one being watched with alarm in the West. Since Russia invaded Ukraine last February, Slovakia has been one of Kyiv\u2019s staunchest allies. The two countries share a border, Slovakia was the first country to send air defenses to Ukraine and it welcomed tens of thousands of refugees. But all that could change if Fico comes to power. The former prime minister makes no secret of his sympathies towards the Kremlin and has&#8230; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35185,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-in-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35184"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35186,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35184\/revisions\/35186"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/35185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}