Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico does not plan to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday, January 17, as he will be dealing with local social policy issues. In particular, he will postpone discussing issues related to gas supply.
According to the Irozhlas portal, Fico confirmed during a press conference in Košice on January 16 that a meeting with Zelenskyy is not currently scheduled. Instead, the prime minister intends to visit the city of Presov to discuss regional issues, such as the construction of a hospital. However, he noted that contact with the Ukrainian president could still take place.
The Slovak portal Kosice notes that the question about a meeting with Zelenskyy came from their journalist. Fico replied that negotiations on the date are ongoing. “We are agreeing on another date, which should be in the coming days,” the journalists quoted him as saying.
Details on the format and location of the upcoming meeting remain unknown. The parties also did not specify whether the meeting would take place in Kyiv or in another location. The Ukrainian side has not yet commented on the Slovak prime minister’s statement.
It is worth noting that on January 1, Slovakia stopped receiving Russian gas through the Ukrainian gas transportation system, as Ukraine refused to sign a new transit agreement. In this regard, Robert Fico recently visited Russia and held talks with Vladimir Putin. After the meeting, he announced that an agreement had been reached on gas supplies bypassing Ukraine, presumably through the Turkish Stream pipeline.
It should be added that on January 13, Volodymyr Zelenskyy invited Robert Fico to visit Ukraine on Friday in a post on social media platform X. The Prime Minister replied that the meeting could take place on the border of the two countries.