Russia Ukraine war latest: Putin hosts Slovakian PM Robert Fico and vows ‘destruction’ after Kazan drone attack

Robert Fico’s visit to Moscow was reaction to Volodymyr Zelensky’s opposition to gas transit to Slovakia through Ukraine.

Sharing details about his visit, Mr Fico said on Facebook that Ukrainian president supported sanctions against Russia’s nuclear program, which was against Slovakia’s interest as it relied on nuclear energy.

Mr Fico said Mr Putin confirmed to him that Russia is still ready to deliver gas to the West. He said the two also discussed the military situation in Ukraine, chances for a peaceful solution to the war and the bilateral relations between their two countries which Fico said they will seek to “standardise.”

His trip, however, was condemned by the major Slovak opposition parties.

Slovakia last month signed a short-term pilot contract to buy natural gas from Azerbaijan, as it prepares for a possible halt to Russian supplies through Ukraine.

Earlier this year, it struck a deal to import US liquefied natural gas through a pipeline from Poland.

The country can also receive gas through Austrian, Hungarian and Czech networks, enabling imports from Germany among other potential suppliers.

Russian forces executed five Ukrainian prisoners of war, Ukraine’s Parliamentary Commissioner for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets, said on Sunday.

Lubinets said on the Telegram messenger app that Russian troops shot the five unarmed soldiers after capturing them. He gave no details, but will report this fact to the UN.

“Russian war criminals who shoot Ukrainian prisoners of war should be brought before an international tribunal and punished with the most severe punishment provided for by law,” Lubinets said.

Russia did not immediately comment on the incident, but has previous denied committing war crimes.

Russian president Vladimir Putin yesterday hosted Slovakia’s prime minister, Robert Fico, in a rare visit to the Kremlin by an EU leader since Moscow’s all-out invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Mr Fico arrived in Russia on a “working visit” and met with Mr Putin one-on-one on yesterday evening, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Russia’s RIA news agency.

According to Mr Peskov, the talks were expected to focus on “the international situation” and Russian natural gas deliveries.

Russian natural gas still flows to some European countries, including Slovakia, through Ukraine under a five-year agreement signed before the war that is due to expire at the end of this year.

At a summit in Brussels on Thursday, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky told EU leaders that Kyiv has no intention of renewing the deal, something Mr Fico insisted will harm his country’s interests.

Ukraine lacks the military capability to retake all the territories occupied by Russia since 2014, president Volodymyr Zelensky has acknowledged, as he urged the West to take stronger action to confront Moscow.

“Legally, we cannot give up our territories. This is prohibited by the constitution,” the Ukrainian president said. “But let’s not use such big words. Russia actually controls part of our territory today.”

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Not so very long ago, Vladimir Putin, the would-be reincarnation of Joseph Stalin, had some cause for satisfaction. True, his ill-fated “special military operation” in Ukraine had spectacularly failed in its initial stated aim of subsuming the country into a Greater Russia, resistance supposedly crumbling in days, with Volodymyr Zelensky skulking off into exile.

However, the Kremlin’s “meat-grinder” strategy has succeeded in occupying roughly a third of what was left of Ukrainian territory after the 2014 invasion. Russian troops were advancing, albeit at a glacial pace and an obscene cost in human lives.

The attacks on civilians, homes and energy infrastructure were helping to demoralise and exhaust the Ukrainians, brave as they were. Some 40,000 fresh troops were promised by North Korea – Kim Jong Un’s elite squads, according to reports. Mr Kim and Russia’s other allies in the Middle East were assisting with the sanctions-busting; and the Iranians and Syrians (and, to a lesser degree, the Houthis, Hezbollah and Hamas) shared Russia’s agenda.

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Ukraine brought the war into the heart of Russia on Saturday morning with drone attacks that local authorities said damaged residential buildings in the city of Kazan in the Tatarstan region, over 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) from the front line.

The press service of Tatarstan’s governor, Rustam Minnikhanov, said that eight drones attacked the city. Six hit residential buildings, one hit an industrial facility and one was shot down over a river, the statement said.

It comes as Moscow’s troops continue to slowly advance in eastern Ukraine, with their defence ministry stating they had taken control of the village of Kostiantynopolske in the Donetsk province.

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Unsettled by Russia’s expansionism and emboldened by its accession to NATO, Finland is rallying to strengthen its national self-defense.

The popularity of weapons training in the Nordic country has soared in recent months. Few places tell the story of the rise in Finnish affinity for self-defense more than shooting ranges that are riding a boom of interest.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s order for a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine — another big Russian neighbor — in February 2022 continues to resonate in many Finnish minds, and partially explains the ballistics binge.

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