How Robert Fico used Covid and Ukraine to gain power in Slovakia

But the Covid crisis created fresh opportunity for Robert Fico. He began appearing at mass demonstrations against the centre-right government’s restrictions to counter the pandemic.

Those demonstrations became increasingly unruly and ugly. Fico stood at the head of them, rousing the angry crowds with megaphone in hand, even being arrested at one point.

As Covid faded from the headlines, he found a new cause – Ukraine.

The September 2023 election was won – partly – on a pledge to send “not one more round of ammunition” to Kyiv, promising to reverse the Slovak government’s policy of arming Ukraine with artillery shells, heavy weapons and even fighter jets.

And after he won those elections, forming a coalition with Peter Pellegrini – the man who had betrayed him – as well the ultra-nationalist Slovak National Party – he doubled down on that policy.

In February as the world marked the conflict’s second anniversary, Mr Fico reiterated his opposition to the west’s policy of arming Kyiv.

There was no military solution to the conflict, he said, and sending weapons to Ukraine would only fill more graves in the country’s cemeteries.

Russia would never relinquish Crimea, or the parts of the eastern Donbas region it has taken, and instead Kyiv should lay down its arms and sue for peace, he said.

Vladimir Putin, Mr Fico said, had been “wrongly demonised” by the west.

During the six months he has been in office this time, he and his coalition allies have taken a sledgehammer to Slovakia’s institutions.

Reform of the criminal justice system included abolition of the Special Prosecutor’s Office, set up 20 years ago to investigation serious crime and corruption.

The office had been overseeing the Kuciak murders, and six years on, securing a conviction now seems more distant than ever.