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Putin calls on Slovakia to cut off Ukraine energy supplies / Photo: Maxim Shemetov - POOL/AFP
Putin calls on Slovakia to cut off Ukraine energy supplies
Russian President Vladimir Putin praised Slovakia's Moscow-friendly prime minister Tuesday for the country's "independent" position, and suggested Bratislava cuts off gas supplies to Ukraine during a meeting in China.
Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico -- known for his pro-Moscow positions -- has repeatedly criticised Kyiv and stalled European Union sanctions on Moscow over its Ukraine invasion, arguing they put Slovakia's energy security at risk.
"We highly value the independent foreign policy that you and your team, your government, are pursuing," Putin told Fico, the only EU leader to be attending World War II commemorations in Beijing.
Fico is set to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky -- who he has frequently criticised in public -- on Friday.
Slovakia is highly reliant on Russian gas and has slammed Ukrainian attacks on Russia's energy infrastructure -- strikes Kyiv calls fair retaliation for Moscow's nightly drone and missile barrages on its own cities and power grid.
Putin suggested Bratislava retaliates by cutting off its own gas supplies to Ukraine.
"Ukraine receives a significant volume of energy resources through its neighbours in Eastern Europe. Shut off gas supplies that go in reverse," Putin told Fico.
"Shut off electricity supplies, and they will immediately understand that there are some limits to their behaviour in the area of violating other people's interests," he said.
Ukraine has targeted Russia's Druzhba oil pipeline, which carries oil to Slovakia and Hungary, throughout the conflict.
The EU imposed a ban on most oil imports from Russia in 2022, but the Druzhba route was exempted to give landlocked Central European countries time to find alternative oil supplies.
Slovakia and fellow EU member Hungary have asked the European Commission -- the EU's executive arm -- to act against Ukraine's "repeated attacks" on the pipeline.
F.S.Ferrari--INP
