'Russians kneel only to tie their shoelaces!' - Fico mocks EU's 'dysfunctional' strategy to weaken Moscow with sanctions

"Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico mocked the European Union's efforts to weaken Russia through sanctions and military support for Ukraine, calling the bloc's strategy 'dysfunctional' in remarks delivered in Galanta on Friday. "With the idea that the Union is unable to offer anything in terms of peace and only keeps saying war, war, everyone must accept the answer as to why this is so. Because they believe that through the support of Ukraine, the Russian Federation will be weakened," he stated. "That is a bad and dysfunctional strategy, because it is not like that. Every day I read, for the fourth year now, I read in the newspapers how the Russians are on their knees, and the Russians are still not on their knees. They say very rightly that if we are on our knees, it is only because we are tying our shoelaces, but not because someone else wishes it for us," Fico continued. He said the EU failed to act as a peace broker in the Ukraine conflict, arguing the bloc did not present a single concrete peace plan. "The Union should have been the main negotiator, the Union should have said, 'We are here, and we want to negotiate peace'," he stated, emphasising, "The Union has never presented any peace plan and still believes. And that is a big mistake." It comes as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan offered to host peace talks between Ukraine and Russia in Istanbul on Wednesday, aiming to revive stalled negotiations. Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko commented on his position as 'balanced.' Arguing that many of these problems could have been avoided if Brussels had shown more strength and better judgment, Fico criticised the bloc's current leadership, including European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President Antonio Costa and EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas. "The European Union has put itself into an extremely weak position through its own decisions," he said. "We cannot compete with countries like China. We cannot even compete with some countries in Latin America, or with India.""

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