Slovakia’s populist Prime Minister Robert Fico has accepted an invitation from Russian dictator Vladimir Putin to the commemorations in Moscow in May of the end of World War II.

“The Red Army and nations of the former Soviet Union played an irreplaceable role in the defeat of fascism and the victory in the Second World War,” Fico explained after typing in bold letters that he received an “official invitation from the President of RF V. Putin to celebrations of victory over fascism” in a post on his popular Facebook social media page.

When he visits, Fico will be only the third leader of an EU member state that has visited Moscow since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, following Hungarian strongman Viktor Orban's visits in September 2022 and July 2024, and Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer's visit in April 2022.

It comes less than a month after Fico's unprecedented appearance on the Russian television station Rossiya 1, which serves as a mouthpiece for Putin’sregime during which Fico called for security guarantees for the Russian Federation.

Rossiya 1 presenter Olga Skabayeva, often referred to as “The Iron Doll of Russian Propaganda” told Fico during the programme that “something is telling me that you will certainly obtain the invitation very, very soon” after Fico reiterated that he would like to come to Moscow for the celebrations of the 80th anniversary of the end of WWII.

Fico also wrote on Facebook that his government values the legacy of the fight against fascism, even though it relies on legislators from the far-right SNS, which is frequently accused of invoking the symbolism of the Slovak WWII-era clero-fascist state of Jozef Tiso, which was complicit in the Holocaust and other atrocities.

Fico invoked the “historical truth about World War II and the role which the Red Army played in it”, before adding that “it is natural that as a chairman of the government, I have an eminent interest to take part in official celebrations of the victory over fascism, which will take place on May 9 2025 in Moscow”.

His Facebook entry came hours after a previous one in which he announced that he held a telephone conversation with the US president-elect, Donald Trump, in which  a “substantial part of our conversation was the assessment of the military conflict in Ukraine, when American president D. Trump was interested in my views as a premier of a country bordering Ukraine”, adding that “I repeated all the stances I present publicly in this connection”.

After returning to power last autumn, Fico’s left-right government re-oriented Slovak foreign policy from a staunch backer of Ukraine in its defence against Russian invasion to a Kremlin-pleasing stance, calling for peace negotiations. Fico’s cabinet axed state military support to Ukraine but stressed it is not touching commercial military support in which local companies have a business interest.

Fico’s boastful remarks about the invitation to Moscow were slammed by the liberal opposition in Bratislava.

Fico “is trying to hide his diplomatic isolation – instead of Paris, London or Warsaw he wants to make an impression at least with trips to Moscow,” leader of the centrist Progressive Slovakia (PS) Michal Šimečka wrote on his X account.

Šimečka also wrote that Fico “wants to divert attention away from that fact this his glued together [coalition] is falling apart”.

Earlier this month, Fico told his leftist Smer party that it should prepare for an early election option in response to the parliamentary deadlock caused by the departure of three legislators from the SNS parliamentary grouping.

Local political analysts agree that Fico will do his utmost to avoid early elections, which would come at a time when the impact of the recently passed larger-than-expected consolidation package is expected to hit.

However, his public admittance of the early election option signals that “the situation is very complex”, Ivan Štulajter, correspondent of the liberal daily DennikN told bne IntelliNews.

Fico could try to seek support among legislators from existing opposition parties, including the Christian Democrat Movement (KDH), which previously criticised Fico’s cabinet, but was not as vociferous as PS or the neoliberal SaS.