This story is a part of the weekly newsletter about economy, defence, and tech in the eastern flank of Nato, How we cee it.
Just as Slovak prime minister Robert Fico was preparing to fly to Moscow last week to meet Russian president Vladimir Putin for the 4th time since becoming PM in 2023, Slovak defence minister Robert Kaliňák was engaged in discussion with his Polish, Estonian and Latvian counterparts in Warsaw.
Kaliňák announced that Slovakia is looking to participate in a mission it has never joined before: patrolling the skies over the Baltics.
The situation illustrates a schizophrenia in Slovak foreign policy. On the one hand, Fico continues to maintain close ties with Moscow, seeking to normalise trade and political relations with the country that launched a full-scale war against Slovakia’s neighbour Ukraine.
On the other hand, the Slovak defence industry has been exporting record number of artillery shells, helping Ukraine maintain necessary ammunition levels – while making eye-watering profits for the manufacturers with political ties to Fico’s government.
Behind closed doors, the Slovak side is toeing the Nato line, and Bratislava’s military spending even reached two percent of its GDP in 2024, as required by Nato.
Meanwhile, Fico continues with ever stronger criticism of Ukraine, the EU and the West, and boasts about the effectiveness of authoritarian regimes such as those in China, Vietnam and Putin’s Russia.
Fico says war always comes from the West and peace always comes from the East.