Slovak PM Survives Assassination Attempt

By Staff, Agencies

Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico was hospitalized on Wednesday after he was shot five times in an assassination attempt that shocked the country.

The attack took place after an off-site government meeting in the central Slovak town of Handlova. The suspected gunman was among a small crowd of people waiting to greet the prime minister on the street outside the cultural center, where the meeting took place, local media reported.

Footage from the scene shows the injured prime minister being bundled into a vehicle by his staff, before it speeds away with him inside. Fico was taken to a local hospital and then transferred by helicopter to a major trauma center about 20 miles [30 kilometers] away in Banska Bystrica. No one else was injured in the attack, officials said.

Both the country’s Defense Minister Robert Kali?ák and Interior Minister Matúš Šutaj Eštok called the shooting “politically motivated,” with Šutaj Eštok saying that “the suspect made the decision to do it shortly after the presidential election.”

Slovakian deputy Prime Minister Tomáš Taraba said he believed the prime minister would survive following surgery that “went well” and was “not in a life-threatening situation at this moment.”

“I was very shocked and tried to contact people to figure out how serious his condition was,” Taraba said in an interview with BBC’s Newshour program on Wednesday, recalling the moment he heard about Fico’s shooting.

In what was a stunning comeback for the controversial politician, Fico won a third term as Slovakian prime minister last October after running a campaign that criticized western support for Ukraine. As prime minister, he made a major U-turn in Slovakia’s foreign policy and its previously staunch support for Ukraine: Fico had pledged an immediate end to Slovak military support for Ukraine and promised to block Ukraine’s NATO ambitions.

Ahead of the election, Fico made no secret of his sympathies towards the Kremlin and blamed “Ukrainian Nazis and fascists” for provoking Vladimir Putin into launching the invasion, repeating the false narrative Russia’s president has used to justify his invasion.