The staunchly pro-Russian Robert Fico is back in power for a third time in Slovakia. Fico’s Smer party clinched at least 23 per cent of the vote – enough to lead a coalition government. His victory comes five years after Fico was forced to resign following mass protests over the murder of a journalist investigation corruption in his government.
Fico has not been shy during campaigning about his views on Russia and Ukraine. His most striking pledge was to immediately end military support for Kyiv, promising to ‘not send a single round’ of ammunition to Ukraine if voted into power; now that he is, Ukraine’s allies are concerned about whether he will follow through – and what other trouble he may cause.
Fico’s victory in Slovakia shows the enduring nature of Russia’s sphere of influence
Until now, Slovakia has loyally followed the lead of its fellow Nato and EU members, supplying weapons to Ukraine, taking in Ukrainian refugees and beginning the process of weaning itself of Russian gas. So just why, in a population for whom Soviet rule and all its hardships is still within living memory for many, did Fico’s pro-Kremlin message resonate so strongly?
In his campaign for re-election, Fico was able to tap into a widely-held view that has been flowing through Slovakia’s population since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Before February 2022, the country was almost 100 per cent reliant on Russian gas and oil, both for domestic and industrial purposes. Although the country has managed to reduce its dependence on Russian energy by at least a third, it appears to have done so grudgingly, with many Slovaks resentful of the subsequent higher domestic energy costs and the potential impact on industry as a result. They blame Ukraine for this disruption.
The countries of central Europe, located between western Europe and Russia have, for a long time, found themselves in a tug of war between the two. The current war in Ukraine is over this very issue. But while the conflict has catalysed a hardening of sentiments towards Russia in Slovakia’s Baltic neighbours, such as Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, Bratislava, it appears, is slipping in the other direction.
Driving the divide between the hawkish Baltic states and central eastern European ones such as Slovakia, and indeed Hungary, is where they think Russia might target next. In a survey of Slovaks conducted earlier this year by GlobSec, 69 per cent said they believed helping Ukraine would bring them into Russia’s firing line. Discord in both the EU and Nato on Ukraine, but also wider-reaching policies such as the climate and net zero, have left many Slovakians with little faith that, if Slovakia was dragged into the war, either alliance would come riding to their rescue.
Fico’s victory in the early hours of last night would not have been possible without the insidious influence of pro-Kremlin disinformation that has been floating around the country for some time. Last week, European Commission vice president Věra Jourová called the Slovak elections ‘a test case’ for how vulnerable European elections could be to the ‘multimillion-euro weapon of mass manipulation’. Russian rhetoric, that Ukraine is run by Neo-nazis and that Washington, and not Moscow, is the primary aggressor, has been widely shared in Slovakia.
Fico himself has directly propagated this damaging rhetoric. On the campaign trail in August, he told supporters that ‘the war in Ukraine didn’t start a year ago, it started in 2014, when Ukrainian Nazis and fascists started murdering Russian citizens in the Donbas and Luhansk’. Singing the praises of the Soviet Union, he said Russia ‘liberated us. We need to show some respect. We need to tell the whole world, freedom came from the East, war always comes from the West.’
Disinformation campaigns targeting ‘liberal’ views on sexuality and gender equality have also been widely circulated in Slovakia, particularly on social media. Designed to alienate Slovaks against the West and its views, this tactic seems to have worked – according to the GlobSec survey, 78 per cent of Slovaks view Russia as a fellow traditional Slavic nation with many shared cultural values.
Support for membership of both Nato and the EU – which rose steadily between 2018 and 2020 – has started to slip this year. Just 58 per cent of Slovaks want to stay in the alliance; support for remaining in the EU is also waning.
Meanwhile, many Slovaks are not sympathetic to Kyiv: just 40 per cent believe that Russia is responsible for starting the war in Ukraine. Fico tapped into this view with his campaign rhetoric.
So will the decision of such a small country, with just 5.5 million people and arguably little influence on the European stage, to vote in a pro-Kremlin leader affect Ukraine? Slovakia has few weapons left to give at the moment anyway, so Fico’s pledge to stop completely will supposedly make little material difference – that is if he even chooses to follow through with it.
But as a Nato and EU member, Slovakia under Fico’s leadership can cause trouble. Bratislava could make resolutions and support packages for Ukraine much more difficult if it decides to block votes and object to policies. In two weeks’ time Poland also heads to the polls; should the pro-Moscow faction win power there too, there is a reasonable chance that, together with Hungary, Slovakia and Poland could form a resistant bloc within the alliances.
What is clear is that Fico’s victory in Slovakia shows the enduring nature of Russia’s sphere of influence and the fragility of Western democratic values in central Europe. That after the country’s history under Soviet rule, and subsequent turmoil of the 90s and early 2000s, Moscow is still able to exert a pull over politicians and the population more broadly is as remarkable as it is concerning. Should this trend spread elsewhere, it is not only the West’s support for Ukraine that could be undermined. Fico’s victory in Slovakia should serve as a wake-up call not to take central Europe’s affinity with the West for granted.
Comments