(Reuters) – Slovakia’s outgoing caretaker government will not send more military aid to Ukraine for now, leaving it to the next administration following an election last weekend, Prime Minister Ludovit Odor said on Thursday, according to TASR news agency.
Three-time leftist prime minister Robert Fico’s SMER-SSD party won an election on Sept. 30 with pledges to stop military aid, and is seeking coalition partners to form government in the coming weeks.
Before falling apart last year, the country’s previous centre-right government was a staunch backer of Ukraine and supplied various military gear, including fighting vehicles as well as an S-300 air defence system and MiG-29 jets.
Odor’s technocrat government had continued help for Ukraine, with which Slovakia shares a border, as it battles against Russia’s invasion.
TASR cited Odor as saying on the sidelines of a European Union summit in Granada, Spain that his administration would leave the question of more military aid to the next government.
“I believe that a government will be formed that will be pro-European and will continue to help Ukraine,” he said, according to TASR.
“In what form will depend on the government, but I do not think that, at the least, anyone will stop the commercial part of aid,” he said, adding there was no consideration of stopping weapons deliveries from private companies.
Slovakia’s changing stance to Ukraine comes as the United States Congress passed a stopgap bill on Saturday that did not include aid for Kyiv, although President Biden said support would continue.
Foreign diplomats and analysts have said Fico’s pledge to stop supplying Ukraine from army stockpiles may not have a huge impact as the army had already provided much of what it could, other than some ammunition.
Fico has backed humanitarian and reconstruction aid for Ukraine but not state military aid. He favours peace talks – a stance similar to that of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban but rejected by Ukraine and its Western allies, who say this would only encourage Russia.
(Reporting by Jason Hovet in Prague; Editing by Rod Nickel)
