Slovakia summons envoy to protest Russian pre-election comment

To express its displeasure over remarks made by Sergei Naryshkin, head of Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service, before to the election on Saturday, Slovakia’s Foreign Ministry summoned a representative from the Russian embassy on Monday.

The comments, according to the ministry, were made amid a prohibition on pre-election material that may help or hurt candidates. It charged Russia with disinformation dissemination, which Russia denied.

In a statement posted to its website on September 28, the SVR claimed that the United States had given its allies orders to coordinate with regional political and business leaders in order to “ensure the voting results demanded by the Americans” and that the pro-Western liberal Progresivne Slovensko (Progressive Slovakia) should win.

The declaration referred to the group as U.S. proxies.

“The department of diplomacy strongly protests against the false statement of Russian intelligence which cast doubt on the integrity of the free and democratic election in Slovakia,” the Slovak ministry said.

“We consider such deliberately spread disinformation to be unacceptable interference by the Russian Federation in the election process.”

It urged Russia to stop spreading false information about Slovakia.

The Slovak accusations were denied by the Russian embassy in Slovakia.

“Unlike some of Slovakia’s current allies, we do not interfere with internal affairs of other countries, we do not take part in regime changes and various ‘colour’ revolutions,” it said on Facebook.

The socialist former prime minister Robert Fico’s SMER-SSD party received the most votes in the election on Saturday. Fico has vowed to stop Slovak military assistance to Ukraine and reject sanctions against Russia.

Slovakia’s progress was second. A request for comment to the SVR claims received no immediate response from the party.

President Zuzana Caputova gave Fico the go-ahead to start coalition government formation talks on Monday. The moderate-left HLAS party, which observers claim would temper any policy change, and a small group of pro-Russian nationalists are his most potential coalition partners.

(With agency inputs)