Robert Fico in Stable and Improving Condition, Is Communicating
Fico was shot in the town of Handlová after an off-site government meeting on 5 May. The pre-trial detention of the suspected perpetrator has been ordered by a Slovak court.
Fico was shot in the town of Handlová after an off-site government meeting on 5 May. The pre-trial detention of the suspected perpetrator has been ordered by a Slovak court.
Ebrahim Raisi, the Iranian President and a potential successor to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, along with Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, were reported dead following a helicopter crash in the northern area of the country on Sunday. The European Union, China, and Russia have already expressed their condolences, while the United States had remained silent at the time of writing. Israeli officials stated that the Jewish state was not involved in Raisi’s death.
Russia held its first three-day-long presidential election between 15–17 March 2024; 7 May marked the previous cabinet’s last day in office. The new appointments in the Russian cabinet are significant not only because they mark the Kremlin’s apparent preparation for a long war, but also because they provide a fresh insight into the power games played in Moscow.
While talking at the Sedona Forum, US Ambassador to Hungary David Pressman called Hungary’s pro-peace approach to the Russo-Ukrainian war ‘a proposal for capitulation’. In response to him, the political director for the Prime Minister of Hungary Balázs Orbán asked: ‘Has the US strategy really been that effective over the past two years?’
The attempted assassination of Robert Fico has led to a significant rise in death threats against European leaders, including Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Máté Kocsis, the Fidesz parliamentary group leader, attributes this escalation partly to left-wing media, accusing them of mastering hate speech and biased reporting.
Instead of condemning the law that protects Georgia’s sovereignty, the EU should consider adopting similar measures, Balázs Orbán argued in his X post. On Tuesday, the Georgian parliament passed a law mandating registration for organizations that receive substantial foreign funding, triggering significant outcry in Brussels. However, the law, disparagingly labelled as the ‘Russian law,’ bears similarities to the Foreign Agents Registration Act in the United States, which has been in place for nearly a century.
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico is in a stable but very serious condition after he was shot at point-blank range by a 71-year-old perpetrator, described as a poet and political activist in media reports, on Wednesday afternoon. The international community responded with shock to the news of the attempted assassination, as world leaders expressed their support for Slovakia.
‘As opposed to the European mainstream, which proclaims multiculturalism but in reality wraps itself up in cultural arrogance, Hungary’s openness and pragmatic stance towards the seven eighths of the world that is outside the Western realm already confer an advantage upon us. If the framework of the world as we know it crumbles against our will, this cultural openness of ours may well supply the footing for us from which to enter the next period with confidence. For navigare necesse est—Sail we must.’
‘The vestiges of Cold War thinking continue to linger on, with the fear of a hypothetical Russia–West conflict escalating into a war that ends civilization imprinted on our minds so much that it has never actually gone away. Nevertheless, it must be recognized that Russia has lost much of its power compared to its Communist era strength and would struggle if it wanted to fight against the West. To be precise, barring the suicidal option of launching a nuclear holocaust and burning everyone, including itself, to smouldering ashes, Russia is not even economically competitive enough to master sufficient military power to achieve superiority in brute force over Ukraine, not to mention having the strength to go on and attack any NATO country.’
‘I think the Biden administration behaved and spoke recklessly about Ukraine in the run-up to the war, and about the Ukrainian prospects for NATO accession and joining the EU—even though the United States obviously can have an opinion about that, but it’s not part of that process, while it is part of the NATO process. Whereas Trump had more of a carefully mixed record.’