Russian President Vladimir Putin has held talks in the Kremlin with Slovakia’s prime minister, Robert Fico, in a rare visit to Moscow by an EU leader since Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico met Russian President Vladimir Putin in a previously unannounced visit to the Kremlin on Sunday for talks, Russian state media reported. It was the first visit by an official representative from Slovakia to Russia since Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Sunday, discussing gas transit and the war in Ukraine, as Kyiv signals it will not renew a key gas

Fico arrived in Russia on a ‘working visit’ and met with Putin one-on-one on Sunday evening, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russia’s RIA agency

Russian President Vladimir Putin held talks in the Kremlin on Sunday with Slovakia’s prime minister, Robert Fico (shown here in Brussels in February 2024), in a rare visit to Moscow by an EU leader since Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. (Geert Vanden Wijngaert/AP)

Robert Fico said he and the Russian leader discussed "the possibilities of an early, peaceful end of the war" in Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in his evening address on Monday, 23 December, has once again criticised Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, who on 22 December held talks with Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin regarding gas supplies.

Fico ended military aid to Ukraine when he became prime minister again in October 2023, and like Hungarian counterpart Viktor Orban has called for peace talks.