NATO member’s PM blames West for sabotaging Ukraine peace talks

Slovakia’s prime minister said that the conflict won’t end as long as Western states are sending weapons to Kiev

Western politicians did everything they could to derail the 2022 peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said.

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has openly criticized Western intervention in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, arguing that the end of hostilities is not possible as long as Kiev continues to receive military and financial aid. He praised Beijing’s efforts to find a diplomatic solution to end the fighting.

Fico made his comments after returning from Beijing, where he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

In a video message posted on social media on Friday, Fico said that he welcomes China’s diplomatic efforts dedicated to settling the conflict.

“We share the same opinion that it is impossible to immediately end the fighting as long as Ukraine continues to be militarily and financially supported by the West,” the Slovak politician argued.

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He added that he shares concerns that the tensions between Russia and NATO risk escalating into a nuclear war. Slovakia would join the Friends of Peace platform, which was launched in September by China and Brazil to promote a diplomatic resolution of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

The prime minister hit back at British Ambassador to Slovakia Nigel Baker, who said earlier this week that it was “regrettable” that Fico gave an interview to Russia’s Rossiya-1 TV channel and called Fico’s claim that the West was not interested in peace “untrue.”

“Slovakia is not Britain’s colony,” Fico said, adding that London had no right to complain about his media appearances. He blamed Kiev’s foreign backers for the failed peace negotiations in the spring of 2022.

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“It were the Western politicians who, in April 2022, shortly after the outbreak of the conflict, did everything they could in order not to have a realistic peace agreement signed,” he said. Fico dismissed Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s subsequent ‘peace formula’ proposal as “unrealistic.”

After assuming office in the fall of 2023, Fico suspended Bratislava’s military aid to Kiev and repeatedly called on the EU to focus on diplomacy.

According to Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Ukrainian delegation abruptly walked away from the negotiation table in 2022, despite initially agreeing to drop its aspiration to join NATO and restrict the size of its army. Victoria Nuland, a former senior US State Department official, admitted in 2024 that Washington had advised Kiev not to sign the deal it was discussing with Moscow.