“In December, while the possibility of Russian gas supplies to Slovakia was still under discussion, Prime Minister Robert Fico came to Moscow to meet with President Vladimir Putin and discuss the possibility of maintaining gas supplies”, — write: www.radiosvoboda.org
In December, when the possibility of supplying Russian gas to Slovakia was still under discussion, Fico traveled to Moscow to meet with President Vladimir Putin and discuss the possibility of maintaining gas supplies.
Slovakia argued with Ukraine over Kyiv’s decision to stop the transit of Russian gas through its territory from January 1.
Prime Minister Fico’s trip to Moscow was only the third visit to Russia by an EU head of government since Putin ordered troops to launch a full-scale invasion of the neighboring country in February 2022.
Organizers of the protest action in Bratislava estimated that 15,000 people protested.
Fico said that cutting off gas supplies through Ukraine would cost Slovakia approximately 1.5 billion euros in lost tolls for transit flows onward to Europe.
He is threatening to retaliate, possibly by cutting humanitarian aid to Kyiv, ending support for Ukrainian refugees in Slovakia, or halting emergency power supplies to Ukraine.
On January 10, he said that Putin promised to find alternative ways of supplying gas to Slovakia.
About 13.5 billion cubic meters of gas were pumped through Ukraine last year, including about 3 billion cubic meters for Slovak consumption.
The EU has said there is no need to extend the transit contract through Ukraine and that countries receiving Russian gas have access to alternative supplies.