"There are countries, if I am not mistaken, the Czech Republic, for example, froze real estate on its territory, which belonged to Russia or representatives of Russia, or Russian entrepreneurs, I do not have accurate information, but I want to say that we in Slovakia, of course, will not go this way," Fico said in an interview with the InfoVojna broadcaster.
Earlier in December, Fico highlighted importance of maintaining a dialogue between Bratislava and Moscow, thereby refusing to follow the Western trend of pretending that "Russia does not exist." The Ukraine conflict will end at some point, which will be followed by a "significant standardization of relations" with Russia, the Slovak prime minister added.
"Russia used to be an important partner of Slovakia, but today I have to admit that the relations are practically dead. Today, our embassy in Moscow, as well as Russia's embassy in Bratislava, are in total isolation and there are no meetings with anyone. But I do not think that it is right. We have to talk, because if we do not talk, we will never make any progress," Fico said.
Fico also criticized another package of sanctions that is currently being prepared by the EU.
"Answer yourself a question: what have the sanctions affected? Yes, with a high probability they could complicate the lives of Russian citizens, but it is naive to think that if Russian citizens cannot buy US phones, then they will not be able to replace them with phones made by China or some other country," he said.
As a result, the sanctions caused Russia to become independent in the areas it had not been so before, the Slovak prime minister noted.
"And the worst thing is that the sanctions often cause harm to the European Union and Slovakia," Fico said.
The prime minister also reaffirmed his statement made in October that Slovakia would not support sanctions against Russia's civilian nuclear energy industry as they could significantly harm the operations of Slovak nuclear power plants and their nuclear fuel supplies.