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Cake day: June 27th, 2023

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  • FYI president in many eastern European countries is just a ceremonial figure without much actual power. It’s kind of like the king in UK.

    The real power is in the hands of the government and its prime minister.

    So when the article mentions that the president signed the law, he effectively does not really have any options not to sign it once it was approved by parliament. Outside of very specific cases. For example if he had a good reason to suspect the law is unconstitutional he could have the constitutional court decide whether it’s okay. And if it is, he’d have to sign it.








  • Something that were already seeing with Slovakia cutting all aid to Ukraine and taking a ‘war is bad, negotiate peace’ stance that is a blatant and thinly veiled Russian supportive line.

    Keep in mind that Fico is lying populist. He is very vocal about ending support for Ukraine, but then ends up supporting budget that includes help for Ukraine.

    He’s very dependent on EU money. Estonian prime minister Kaja Kallas very correctly pointed out to reporters that Hungary often said one thing to the media and did another thing behind closed doors. Fico is exactly the same.

    Any military equipment Slovakia could send is already in Ukraine. And any future financial help will be approved by Fico after making loud claims in the media how he’ll stop any and all support. Or pretend that the support is only humanitarian. (But obviously money is money, we can easily pretend the 1% of the overall budget that Slovakia sent was used for… …uh… …fuel?)






  • To be fair, you’re posting messages here using protocol, that was used for military purposes. (The TCP/IP used to be called DoD protocol back then) So it’s not like the money is completely wasted if you’re smart about it.

    Building good road/rail infrastructure to enable the ability to respond to military threats within the country would also benefit the general population.

    Throwing nearly half a million of your productive generation men into a meat grinder in an offensive war certainly isn’t one of those smart investments.



  • Well there is the risk of losing Ukraine’s goodwill. It’s one of the biggest countries bordering Slovakia. I’m quite sure there will be a lot of money flowing to Ukraine pre-EU to support reconstruction and preparation for joining the EU. There are many contracts to be lost etc…

    It just makes no sense to be on bad terms with your direct neighbor just so you can be a simp for constantly drunk guy down the street that has nothing to offer and no perspective.

    I mean Slovakia found out that russian technicians were fucking with the jets they were maintaining for Slovak military.

    But it all makes sense when you realize that Fico only follows his own interests. He couldn’t care less about his country.


  • If you’re trying to find any logic or intent in what populist lying politician says, you’re doing it wrong.

    If Fico said that the sky is blue, I’d go outside to check.

    He just won election on the platform of russian lies and conspiracy theories. He’s a COVID denier that was privately recorded saying he personally had quite serious symptoms when he got it. He lies pretty much constantly.

    Whatever he says has no reflection in reality. There was pretty much zero military help from Slovakia since we gave away the only S300 system and jets. The rest (ie Zuzana howitzer) is paid for by a third party or an actual contract. And he’s not stopping that - if anything he likely gets a cut off that deal. It’s just posturing for the portion of his voting base that eats russian propaganda he personally helped to spread.

    Strategically it makes no sense to suck putin’s dick. Russia is done for no matter what happens in Ukraine. It’s a bankrupt pseudo-country on the verge of collapse. It makes zero sense losing the good will of the EU countries - many of which have bigger economies than russia - for anything russia can provide. And Fico isn’t some master planner. If there isn’t something in it for him, he isn’t interested. It’s that simple. And he needs EU money to fund projects he can then suck dry.



  • I think it’s important to point out, that “winning elections” does not mean that the majority of Slovaks support them. They just won as a party with most votes. (23% so not even a quarter)

    They just won the mandate to form a government for which they’ll need at least two other parties to form a majority. The anti EU/NATO stance might be a problem here as it’s not universally shared among possible coalition partners.

    It is misleading to draw such a strong “Slovakia is pro-russian country” conclusion based on a single party getting the most votes, because many of the other parties that are at the very least silent if not outright pro-nato/eu with significant amount of the votes.

    Even comparison to Hungary is a huge stretch as Orbán’s party alone got more than 50% of the votes. As it is now, Smer has to form a coalition with other (in many ways more moderate) parties which is already not 100% given - it would not be the first time when the winning party ends up in opposition. And going forward they either avoid these friction points (so they end up acting more moderate) or they risk coalition breaking apart with early election or opposition forming government.