Linking an official working visit to Russia and talks with the Russian Prime Minister on energy supplies to speculation about election interference in Slovakia is "nonsense beyond belief", said Slovak President Peter Pellegrini on Tuesday.
Pellegrini reacted to media reports about discussions with Russian representatives allegedly concerning interference in Slovakia's 2020 parliamentary elections. The President hinted that the information might be an attempt to defame him.
He noted that his meeting with the new Russian Prime Minister, Mikhail Mishustin, in February 2020 was one of dozens of working trips that he took. He underlined that the fulcrum of the meeting was guarantees of energy supplies from Russia.
"At a time when new packages of sanctions by the European Union against the Russian Federation were introduced, we wanted to ensure that supplies of oil, natural gas and nuclear fuel to Slovakia would continue to be guaranteed," said Pellegrini, who was accompanied on the trip by then economy minister Peter Žiga.
Prime Minister Robert Fico (Smer-SD) said that he sees no breach of rules in Pellegrini’s foreign trip to Russia in 2020.
"I don't know what's so unusual about someone wanting to help someone else. It wasn't corruption or anything else. I think this is primarily a question that should be directed at the then leaders of the Smer candidate list, but I see no interference or breach of rules in it. A breach of rules is when the British Foreign Office hires a company that then pays influencers, actors and well-known personalities in Slovakia to help the Progressive Slovakia party," he said.
The opposition's Progressive Slovakia (PS) party warned of possible election interference with respect to Pellegrini’s Russian trip and called for explanations, saying that the Slovak Security Council should convene on the matter.
"It is essential that the President addresses the people and tells the whole truth — what exactly he asked of the Russians, what kind of assistance he sought, to what extent professional Russian propagandists and agents were involved in the election campaign, and whether strategic experts from Russia were present in Slovakia then, as well as later during the presidential and parliamentary elections, as they are now in Hungary," PS MP Peter Bator said.
The opposition SaS party on Tuesday again pointed to alleged coordination between Russia and Hungary on influencing elections in Slovakia in favour of the ruling Smer-SD. It announced it would turn to the Prosecutor-General's Office.
According to Dennik N daily, before Slovakia's elections in 2020 Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto explained to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, at the request of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, that it was "critically important" for Hungary to make sure that the then-coalition in Slovakia remained in power and that receiving then-Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini in Moscow would "greatly help him to win the election".
