Robert Fico in ta3: I told the coalition that we are going to hell. He admits early elections, wants to pay back Ukraine with a veto in the EU

Where is Slovakia's foreign policy heading? What did the Prime Minister promise the Huliaks? How will the coalition deal with the Mughals and what do we know about the Prime Minister's trip to Moscow? Robert Fico, the Prime Minister and leader of Smer-SD, answered these questions exclusively in the V politike programme. We watched online.

12:05 The show In Politics is over. Thank you for your goodwill. You can watch it in a rerun on Sunday evening at 20:00.

12:02 Kataster was the subject of a "brutal hacker attack", according to Fico . The prime minister also says they are working with the version that someone at the cadastre "opened the door" to the attackers .

He also reiterated the interior minister's previous claim that Russia had faced a similar attack. Moscow, however, has officially denied any such thing. He added that remedies were being worked on, but did not say when the catastre would be reopened. "If someone has failed, heads will roll," the prime minister warned.

11:58 Fico has identified as his priorities the construction of hospitals, foreign investment, rental housing and scrutiny of individual ministers with regard to whether they are implementing the government's programme declaration. He particularly praised the transport ministry headed by Minister Jozef Ráž (Smer-SD).

11:56 "I am expecting another attack. It is perhaps a matter of weeks and months that something will happen in Slovakia," Fico says. He added that he was not referring only to an event of the type of the Handlová assassination, but to an attack on the government coalition as a whole.

11:55 The prime minister rather disagrees with a possible future coalition with the KDH. "Maybe in the future there will be topics that the KDH might be interested in, but first of all I am in negotiations with Andrej Danko and Matúš Šutaj Estok," Fico said.

11:46 Fico told his coalition partners at the council that the coalition is "going to hell". The prime minister said this in reference to the problems in parliament, where some bills did not pass at the last session because of the Huliaks and rebels from the Hlas.

The Prime Minister also admitted that if the 76-party does not work in the National Assembly, early elections are a possibility. "Why should I, as the leader of a stable coalition party, pay the price for the coalition's inability to pass laws in parliament?" Fico asks.

"Either we say, it's not possible, there will be early parliamentary elections or there will be a reconstruction of the government," the prime minister added.

11:40 Fico told "one of his coalition partners" that it was a mistake not to crack down harder on "political" NGOs. "One of my partners is right on this," the prime minister says. The message was apparently directed at Hlas-SD.

11:31 PM says his trips to Moscow and Vietnam were private. "I was not on any state trip, I was not on an official trip. I was there on a private trip, in the framework of which there was one business meeting," Fico says, referring to his meeting with the Russian president, who, according to videos of the event, gave him a standard Kremlin reception.

11:27 Fico hinted that he does not think the break-up of the EU is inconceivable. "If someone had asked me in 1988 whether I thought the Warsaw Pact would break up within a year, I would have thought they were crazy. And a year later it suddenly didn't exist," the prime minister compared.

11:24 The public discourse on changing the declaration of Slovakia's foreign policy direction was, according to Fico, just "shortcuts to hurt us".

"Slovakia's living space is in the European Union and NATO," the prime minister stressed. However, he claims that the situation on the old continent is changing and his words only announced that "Slovakia must prepare for this situation".

11:18 Fico defends the start of Russia's aggressive invasion of Ukraine, which will soon be three years old. He admits that it was a violation of international law, but argues that Moscow had its reasons. "Russia has been continuously deceived about NATO enlargement," the prime minister says of the defence organisation, of which Slovakia is a part.

"The Russians have said to themselves, it's worth it, we're going to break international law," Fico thinks. He also welcomed US President-elect Donald Trump's claims that the war in Ukraine started because of the administration of outgoing President Joe Biden.

11:16 Moderator Braňo Král reminded the prime minister that these measures would be directed against a country whose critical infrastructure is regularly bombed by Russia. "You're starting to emotionally blackmail, on ground where emotional blackmail is unnecessary. Especially with me, given what I've been through because of my views," Fico said. He was apparently referring to the assassination in Handlová last May.

11:14 PM threatens his veto power in the European Union. "If President Zelensky decides to harm the entire EU purely for political reasons, I speak for the Slovak government that the next time any aid for Ukraine is on the table, I will veto it," Fico said. He also reiterated that Slovakia can stop humanitarian aid, modify the way benefits are paid to Ukrainian refugees in Slovakia or stop emergency electricity supplies to Ukraine.

11:12 Fico repeated the claim that half of the money that goes to Ukraine in aid "is stolen". The presenter of the V Politika show, Braňo Král, countered him by asking who else is making this claim.

"That there is corruption in Ukraine? Please, you don't mean this seriously now," the prime minister said without putting forward another argument.

11:07 "Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal is also aware that if the pipe that goes through Ukraine is not used, it may be subject to liquidation," reportedly emerged from talks between Fico and his Ukrainian counterpart. In joint meetings, they reportedly "did not address anything else" other than maintaining gas transit through our eastern neighbour.

11:05 Fico explains his trip to Moscow. "I needed to check two things: Is the Russian side ready to continue to fulfil the obligations arising from the agreement between Slovakia and Russia? Are you ready to continue gas transit through Ukraine to Europe?" says the prime minister, claiming that Russian President Vladimir Putin answered both questions in the affirmative.

The Slovak government is said to have prepared two options on how to circumvent the non-renewal of the Ukraine-Russia contracts. "Everything was stopped by President (Volodymyr) Zelensky," Fico claims.

11:03 "We have full reservoirs, we have diversification contracts," the prime minister said about the gas situation. The problem, however, according to him, is that gas is no longer flowing from the east to the west and will be more expensive in the future.

"This is the main reason why I was in Brussels, where I warned the Commission," Fico says, adding that Europe still needs to import a certain volume of gas from the east. "Ukraine alone is losing 800 million euros," he added.

11:01 PM talks about foreign policy noting that the world is changing. "Look at what is happening in Austria, what is happening in Germany," Fico said, referring to elections in neighbouring countries where far-right parties are doing well.

11:00 In Politics. The guest is Prime Minister Robert Fico.

Watch the full episode of In Politics with Prime Minister Robert Fico: