Several thousand people demonstrated against the Slovakian government and its foreign policy in a pro-Ukraine rally in Bratislava late on Tuesday.
The rally in Freedom Square in front of the Slovakian Government Office was organized by the "Peace to Ukraine" initiative, which advocates resolute military support for the neighbouring country, which has been under Russian attack for over two years.
The protesters accused the three-party government of left-wing populist Prime Minister Robert Fico of pursuing a "pro-Russian policy."
One of the spokespersons for the initiative, Rastislav Kalnovic, said in his speech: "It is essential to emphasize that we refuse to be collaborators with a belligerent Russia. We refuse to be partners of a totalitarian regime."
Fico and Slovakian Foreign Minister Juraj Blanár have repeatedly condemned the Russian war and demanded that Russia "respect international law with its guarantee of the territorial inviolability and sovereignty of states."
However, both have said that there is "no military solution" to the war in Ukraine.
After Fico took office in October at the head of a leftist-nationalist government, however, Slovakia halted state arms supplies to Ukraine.
Earlier this month, Blanár met with his Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Turkey, drawing criticism from Slovakian President Zuzana Čaputová.
Blanár defended the meeting, saying that "without communication, there can never be a diplomatic solution to wars, and without diplomatic solutions, no war can end."
He had also made clear that international law demanded the territorial inviolability and sovereignty of states.
"What happened in Ukraine should not have happened," he told Lavrov. But he also said their should be no new Iron Curtain between Russia and the West.
