Slovakia: West Seeks to Escalate Relations with Russia

The consensus to use long-range weapons sent to Ukraine to attack targets on Russian territory is just proof that the great Western democracies do not want peace. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico wrote this on Facebook from the hospital where he is undergoing a series of medical examinations following the May 15 attack. “Western countries want escalation of tensions with Russian Federation, which is bound to happen,” the Slovak prime minister wrote after voting in the European elections. “As prime minister,” Fico emphasized, “I will not drag Slovakia into such military adventures and will do everything in our small capacity to ensure that peace takes precedence over war.”

Sending long-range missile systems to Ukraine represents a very dangerous turning point, but Russia is “not waving around” its nuclear weapons. As Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), “the world will never reach the point of a nuclear attack.” Putin, however, emphasized that in the face of multiplying global dangers, Moscow could change its nuclear doctrine: “This doctrine is a living instrument. We are looking carefully at what is happening in the world, around us, and we do not rule out making changes to this doctrine,” the Russian president said, according to whom “the use of nuclear weapons is possible in an exceptional case, in the event of a threat to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of a country. I don’t think such an occasion has come.”