(Adnkronos) – A Ukrainian man has been arrested in Slovakia on charges of planning a coup against Prime Minister Robert Fico. The Ljubljana police reported this, adding that the suspect was placed in administrative detention awaiting deportation to his country. Polish police chief Yana Mashkarova stressed the importance of the Ukrainian “being deported as soon as possible”.
The news comes after days of Fico – who survived an assassination attempt on 15 May – reporting plans for an alleged coup orchestrated by foreign agents who would like to replicate in Slovakia a climate of protests like those of a decade ago in Kiev, known as Euromaidan, and of recent weeks in Georgia.
And yesterday, the Foreign Ministry of Ljubljana summoned Ukrainian ambassador Miroslav Kastrana, protesting against Kiev’s “interference” in Slovak domestic politics. Ukrainian diplomacy in recent days had denounced “the risk of the pro-Russian policy of the Slovak leaders, with the evident result that Fico and some Slovak parliamentarians were poisoned by Russian propaganda”. Tensions between Ljubljana and Kiev have risen in recent days, after Ukraine halted supplies of Russian gas on which Slovakia was heavily dependent.
