Source: TheGrayzone.com
Slovak PM Robert Fico’s independent stance earned him the wrath of NATO and the EU. Did a Western-directed plot to remove his troublesome government from office trigger his assassination attempt?
On May 15, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico was almost murdered in broad daylight. While shaking hands with supporters during a public appearance, a gunman shot him twice in the abdomen and once in the shoulder. The attack left him fighting for his life while authorities raced for clues, and many observers at home and abroad puzzled about the would-be assassin’s motives and whether foreign actors were in some way responsible for the attack. And despite the shooter’s instantaneous arrest, those questions still linger weeks later.
Fico, a veteran Slovak political figure, was re-elected in September 2023 amid a wave of public resentment over the proxy war in Ukraine, pledging to end arms supplies to Kiev and anti-Russian sanctions. On the campaign trail, Western leaders, journalists and pundits aggressively stoked fears of the “pro-Putin,” “populist” candidate returning to office. Ukraine’s Western-backed “Center for Countering Disinformation” publicly accused him of spreading “infoterror” back in April 2022.
But many Slovakians see it differently. They say Fico is merely committed to defending Slovakia’s sovereignty, and governing in his nation’s interests, not those of Brussels, Kiev, London, and Washington. For Western politicians, his victory came at a highly inopportune time, with public and political consensus on the proxy war in Ukraine rapidly fraying across Europe.
Since Fico’s election, media outlets like Germany’s state broadcaster, Deutsche Welle, have branded him a “threat” to the EU and NATO. His declaration that Kiev must cede territory to Russia to end the war was not well-received in Western capitals. In April, the premier seemingly predicted his own shooting, warning that the virulent political climate in Bratislava could result in politicians getting killed.
Domestically, a number of foreign-funded media assets and NGOs have relentlessly targeted Fico for pursuing neutrality in the conflict. But over two years after Russia’s intervention, local polling indicates just 40% of the population blame Moscow for the proxy war, and 50% consider the US to be a threat to national security. Meanwhile, 69% of Slovakians believe by continuing to arm Ukraine, the West is “provoking Russia and bringing itself closer to the war” and 66% agreed that “the US is dragging [their] country into a war with Russia because it is profiting from it.”
When Fico was re-elected in September 2023, this journalist speculated that a color revolution could soon be impending in Slovakia. We are now left to ponder whether the Prime Minister’s attempted assassination was a Western-directed plot to remove his troublesome government from office. Even though he is finally on the road to recovery, the threat of an overseas-orchestrated coup remains. A vast US-sponsored opposition political and media infrastructure is causing havoc in Bratislava, and this could easily escalate further.
Slovakia has since the end of the Cold War stood apart from its neighbors. Folding the country into the EU and NATO and neutralizing its rebellious politics and population has required an enormous investment in time and money by Brussels and Washington, and relentless meddling in the country’s internal affairs by foreign-funded organizations and actors. Fico’s return to power threatened to not only derail that project, but create a regional contagion effect. Disinfecting the country therefore became of the utmost urgency for the West.
Facebook purge suggests shooter was no ‘lone wolf’
Fico’s shooter, 71-year-old Juraj Cintula, is among the Slovaks who do not support Fico’s positions. A discrepant picture of the man has emerged since his arrest. Some acquaintances describe him as “weird and angry,” and “against everything.” Others report he was meek and mild-mannered, a far from obvious candidate to attempt a high-level political assassination. Cintula, an avowed Kiev ultra, claims he acted alone, his actions motivated by a desire to replace Fico’s government with a pro-Ukrainian administration. Slovakian court documents state that Cintula “wants military aid to be provided to Ukraine and considers the current government to be Judas towards the European Union,” and say this perception is why the would-be assassin “decided to act.”
The mainstream media has made much of Cintula’s background as a dissident poet and writer, in a seeming effort to humanize the would-be killer. By contrast, Aaron Bushnell, who in February self-immolated in protest of Washington’s facilitation of the Gaza genocide, was widely tarred by journalists as a maladjusted, mentally unwell outcast. Unmentioned by any Western outlet is that during the 1980s, Cintula was under surveillance by Czechoslovak security services.
The reason for the Czechs’ interest is unclear, although it may have been due to anti-Communist actions, or foreign contacts. Whether Cintula had seditious confederates within or without Slovakia is a key line of inquiry for police. That all traces of the shooter’s Facebook profile were comprehensively scrubbed from the internet two hours after the shooting, before investigators could access the information, is also source of intense suspicion….