Slovak PM calls Zelenskyy beggar and blackmailer

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has harshly criticised Ukraine as an unreliable partner and said he was tired of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy travelling around Europe "begging" and "blackmailing others".

Source: Robert Fico in a speech at a parliamentary committee on Friday, a video of which he posted on his Facebook page, as reported by European Pravda. 

Details: The Slovak opposition convened the parliamentary committee meeting. It demanded that Fico explains his meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Moscow and provides information about Slovakia's further steps regarding the termination of Russian gas transit through Ukraine.

Fico said that two solutions to the issue of gas transit from Ukraine to Slovakia had been prepared, which Ukraineʼs Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal had allegedly agreed upon. 

One of them was supposed to be an agreement between Russia and Azerbaijan allowing Slovakia to receive Azerbaijani gas, but Fico says that Volodymyr Zelenskyy disrupted this agreement. 

The second option was a proposal for SPP's parent company to set up a subsidiary on the Russian-Ukrainian border so that Slovak gas could be transported to Slovakia via Ukraine.

Fico called Ukraine's president unreliable and said he was sometimes "fed up with him". 

Quote from Robert Fico: "He [Zelenskyy] goes around Europe, just begging and blackmailing others, asking for money. It just has to stop." 

More details: Instead, the Slovak PM said that Russia has always been a reliable partner in energy supplies.

Quote from Robert Fico: "Russia has never deceived us, unlike Ukraine. I remember the situation in 2009 when I was in Ukraine and asked Ukrainian Prime Minister Tymoshenko to give us some gas from the reservoirs in the western part of Ukraine, and I was told to go to hell. These are typical Ukrainians."

Background: 

• Fico became anti-Ukrainian because of his resentment of Yuliia Tymoshenko.
• Meanwhile, Slovak President Peter Pellegrini said that he refused to pay an official visit to Kyiv because Ukraine had stopped transiting Russian gas.
• Fico also voiced a list of threats against Kyiv, including a veto of EU decisions on Ukraine. 

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