Not a single bullet to Ukraine, he said. But still the guns and ammunition flow east
Under Robert Fico, Slovakia has exported more than €100 million in weapons to its neighbour.
Before and after last year’s general election, Smer leader Robert Fico said he would not allow a single bullet to be exported to Ukraine. Later he corrected himself: not a single bullet would be sent from the Slovak army’s stockpiles.
Using open-source data from the European Statistical Office and the Kiel Institute for World Economy, the Sme daily found that Slovakia has actually exported weapons, ammunition and other materiel to Ukraine worth at least €112 million since the current Smer-Hlas-SNS coalition came to power in October 2023.
The real value of military exports to Ukraine under the fourth Fico government is even higher. The available data covers only the period until July 2024, and includes only those items reported by Slovakia to Eurostat. It follows from the data that the Fico government has in fact facilitated the export of military supplies worth more than all those sent during the five months of the interim government of Ľudovít Ódor – a leader whom the current prime minister accused of "supporting military conflict".
The data suggests that Fico and his Smer party, which also controls the Defence Ministry, had little intention of acting on their election slogans about stopping arms exports. By the time Fico started saying at the end of the election campaign that his promise only applied to the armed forces' weapons stocks and not to commercial arms exports, the army actually had very limited amounts of surplus materiel left to donate to Ukraine.
If Fico and his ruling coalition were really interested in stopping the supply of military items to Ukrainian defenders "in the name of peace", they would first have had to restrict their commercial sale from Slovak state and private suppliers. This has not happened.
At least €22 million per month
The government of Eduard Heger (then OĽaNO) remained in power in Slovakia for 14 months following the beginning of Russia’s all-out military invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. It was succeeded, for five months, by Ľudovít Ódor’s caretaker government; by July 2024, Fico’s fourth government had completed more than eight months in office.
Even in terms of the average amount of arms exports to Ukraine per month, Fico’s cabinet surpassed Ódor’s. While Heger’s government exported an average of €37.3 million worth of military matériel per month, according to Eurostat, the average dropped to €19.3 million under Ódor.
Under the Fico government, €22.4 million worth of weapons and ammunition have been sent to Ukraine every month, on average.
Total military exports to Ukraine from Slovakia recorded by Eurostat from February 2022 to July 2024 were worth almost half a billion euros (€478 million).
In fact, Slovakia has exported military materiel to Ukraine worth at least €720 million, according to the data and estimates by the Kiel Institute, which is based on sources other than the data provided to Eurostat by EU member states.
Fico’s about-turn
Fico reversed his plan to stop military aid to Ukraine not only by his words but also by his deeds in the first hours after becoming prime minister for the fourth time in October 2023.
Less than 24 hours after taking office, he travelled to Brussels for a European Council summit, where the lead agenda item was a further half-billion-dollar aid package to Ukraine to secure arms supplies.
Fico could have announced then and there that Slovakia was changing its position and would block the aid at the next EU Council session.
When asked if he had even raised the issue, "This was not the subject of the discussion" was his somewhat evasive response. Even before his departure from Bratislava, he was already creating space for this approach when he suggested in a parliamentary committee in front of Slovak MPs that he would probably not create obstacles for other EU countries to finance aid to Ukraine with European money.
"I can’t stop the Germans or any other country from supplying arms to Ukraine. We can’t do that," Fico said at the time, although a Slovak veto on the aid would certainly have complicated deliveries to Ukraine.
In the following period, too, he was instrumental in ensuring that calls for peace and a halt to military aid to Ukraine remained confined to political rhetoric.
In unison with the Ukrainian government
When, at the end of November 2023, Ukraine’s then foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, wrote on social media about the NATO summit being held in Brussels, Fico’s message on the social network X oozed optimism. He backed it up with a photo of him sitting at a table with the man he dubbed the "pike of Slovak diplomacy": his new foreign minister, Juraj Blanár of Smer.
Fico compared Blanár, who had no previous experience of diplomacy, to the aggressive freshwater fish by saying that as the new minister "he may be stirring up the old carps in the pond of Slovak diplomacy in an unconventional way".
Kuleba later thanked Blanár for "reaffirming Slovakia’s unequivocal support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine within our internationally recognised borders."
Not long before that, Fico had called President Volodymyr Zelensky’s peace plan, which said the same thing, "unrealistic", adding: "We don’t have the IQ of a wooden train."
Somewhat incongruously, Kuleba added that he was grateful to Blanár for Slovakia’s continued cooperation in the defence industry.
The Slovak Foreign Ministry did not officially report on the meeting, but was specifically asked about it by Sme – after which it tried to interpret Blanár's position in such a way that he would not appear to contradict Fico’s words. "The government headed by Robert Fico supports any peace plan that stops the constant human sacrifices and brings the parties in conflict to the negotiating table," it responded.
In January, Fico met with Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal in Uzhhorod, Ukraine, and in April the governments of both countries met in Michalovce, Slovakia.
Before the meeting, Fico called Ukraine "a country with no sovereignty", described it as one of the "most corrupt countries in the world", and claimed that Ukraine is controlled by the US. He reiterated that his government was "only for civilian and humanitarian aid."
Even by that time, the amount of Slovak military exports to Ukraine since his government’s appointment had already surpassed €32 million (November to January) and then €60 million (November to March), according to Eurostat.
The Ukrainian government assessed relations with the Fico administration as "pragmatic".
Ignoring the government’s signature policy
Fico does not mention in his speeches that it is in fact impossible for any entity to legally export "even a bullet" from Slovakia to Ukraine without the consent of the state authorities.
Should the government decide to act, it has the power to stop exports entirely and immediately.
However, already in the autumn of last year it was obvious that trying to keep its pre-election promises would provoke turmoil at home and result in Slovakia’s deep humiliation before its allies. It would also cause a significant conflict with the domestic arms industry.
Even before the elections, Fico knew that by stopping commercial supplies he would destroy the international reputation of Slovakia’s state and private arms suppliers. Sme was told this by a high-ranking source from the arms industry.
State-owned Konštrukta Defence had already signed a €92-million contract to manufacture and supply 16 Zuzana 2 self-propelled howitzers to Ukraine before Fico returned to power. The mobile artillery pieces will be paid for by Norway, Denmark and Germany.
Penalties that would result if the contract were to be broken would damage the company, and by extension its owner, the state. The specific penalties are not known as the contract is not public.
An even more significant impact would be to stop exports of 155-millimetre artillery ammunition, designated 1003M – the code name for the semi-state manufacturer ZVS Holding, which is run by Czechoslovak Group, owned by Czech arms manufacturer Michal Strnad.
The company has become one of the most important European exporters of projectiles to Ukraine, having produced about 60,000 units a year, up from 20,000 per annum before the Russian invasion, according to several sources. Production is expected to reach 120,000 units next year.
Strnad’s group has been investing in modernising production for years, and if the Slovak government were to halt exports, even though this would be in line with Fico’s promises, it would fundamentally harm the company.
A government decision to break these contracts would also mean that the largest two coalition parties, Smer and Hlas, which loudly tout their identity as social democratic, would also be responsible for large-scale redundancies.
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