Slovakia supported Hungary’s proposal to lift sanctions on several Russians, including Russian-Uzbek oligarch Alisher Usmanov, who is close to Vladimir Putin, at the meeting of EU foreign ministers in February.
Source: Aktuality, citing diplomatic sources, as reported by European Pravda
Details: Aktuality says that the issue of lifting sanctions against Usmanov was the subject of negotiations between Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico and Foreign Minister Juraj Blanár with their Hungarian counterparts in Budapest in December 2023.
At that time, the Slovak authorities requested Hungary’s support for the exclusion from the EU sanctions list of businessman Jozef Hambálek, who was included due to his ties with the Night Wolves Russian biker organisation close to Putin.
Aktuality notes that the Hungarians decided to “take advantage of the situation” and, in exchange for supporting the removal of Hambálek from the sanctions list, they asked Slovakia to support the exclusion of several other Russians. Aktuality reports that Bratislava complied with this request concerning them.
These individuals include Arkady Volozh, founder of the Russian Yandex company; Sergei Mndoiants, a Kremlin advisor on EU relations; as well as Alisher Usmanov, former Formula-1 racer Nikita Mazepin, and Russian billionaire Viatcheslav Kantor.
While Volozh and Mndoiants were reportedly removed from the sanctions listalongside Hambálek, strong objections were raised within the EU regarding Usmanov, Mazepin, and Kantor, and EU sanctions against them remained in place.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk sharply criticized the Hungarian and Slovak foreign ministers Monday for meeting with their Russian counterpart during a regional forum in Turkey.
Tusk said that meeting Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on the same day that Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny was buried in Moscow was “not just an expression of good or bad taste.”
“The issue of feasting on the day of Alexey Navalny’s funeral … is just another sign of the Hungarian government, which we find difficult to accept for moral and political reasons,” Tusk told a news conference.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto and Slovak Foreign Minister Juraj Blanár met with Lavrov on Friday during the Antalya Diplomacy Forum gathering. Szijjarto posted details of their dinner on his social media profile.
Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico officially resigned Thursday, less than three weeks after the murder of an investigative reporter and his fiancée shocked the nation.
President Andrej Kiska formally accepted the resignation of the 53-year-old social democrat-turned-populist, who ran the Slovak government for 10 of the past 12 years. Kiska asked Deputy Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini, a member of the outgoing premier’s Smer-SD party, to form a new government.
According to the website of the Denník N daily, Fico told Kiska: “You can relax. I’m not going anywhere. I intend to be an active head of my party.” During the recent crisis, Fico had accused the president of working with financier George Soros to destabilize the government.
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