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Robert Fico is a populist leader who staged a political comeback last year.

The 59-year-old has previously been compared to former US president Donald Trump.

But his election victory last autumn meant NATO also had another leader who was sympathetic to Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

Robert Fico in ‘life-threatening condition’ after assassination attempt – follow live updates

Critics have voiced increasing fears Mr Fico would abandon Slovakia’s pro-Western course.

This would echo some of the concerns raised about Viktor Orban, the prime minister of Hungary, another NATO member.

Thousands of people have repeatedly held protests across Slovakia against his policies.

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Mr Fico and his SMER, or Direction party, secured nearly 23% of the votes at the polls in October.

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Slovak PM bundled into car after being shot

He is known for foul-mouthed tirades against journalists and has campaigned against immigration and LGBTQ+ rights.

The prime minister has previously opposed EU sanctions on Russia – and has been against Ukraine joining NATO.

Pic: AP
Rescue workers wheel Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, who was shot and injured, to a hospital in the town of Banska Bystrica, central Slovakia, Wednesday, May 15, 2024. Slovakia’s populist Prime Minister Robert Fico is in life-threatening condition after being wounded in a shooting Wednesday afternoon, according to his Facebook profile. (Jan Kroslak/TASR via AP)
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Mr Fico was shot and injured on Wednesday. Pic: AP

He believes the US and other nations should use their influence to force Russia and Ukraine to strike a compromise peace deal.

Mr Fico also repeated Mr Putin’s unsupported claim that the Ukrainian government runs a Nazi state from which ethnic Russians in the country need protection.

The politician founded the SMER party in 1999 and has served as the nation’s prime minister for over 10 years across three different spells.

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Slovakian president-elect Peter Pellegrini called the apparent assassination attempt ‘a threat to everything that has adorned Slovak democracy so far’

Born to a working-class family, Mr Fico graduated with a law degree in 1986 and joined the then ruling Communist Party.

After the 1989 fall of communist rule, he worked as a government lawyer, won a seat in parliament under the renamed Communist Party, and represented Slovakia at the European Court For Human Rights.

With a campaign based on overturning austerity reforms, Mr Fico started his first four-year spell as the country’s leader in 2006.

He returned as leader in the parliamentary elections of 2012, but failed in an attempt to win the presidential election of 2014.

In 2016, despite winning the parliamentary polls, Mr Fico’s party was unable to secure a majority and after a multi-party coalition allowed him to remain as leader, he resigned in 2018.

As leader of the largest party following the October 2023 election, Mr Fico formed a coalition with Voice – Social Democracy (Hlas) and the Slovak National Party, and began his fourth term as prime minister.

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All three coalition parties are either leftist or nationalist and, having previously expressed anti-American views, he has spoken about what he called Western influence in Ukraine’s war which only led to Slavic nations killing each other.

His popularity among some, however, has been based on promises to protect the living standards of those left behind in a country where conditions for many are only slowly catching up with western Europe and where many hold relatively fond memories of a communist-era past.

Ukraine should make ‘compromise’

Earlier this year, Mr Fico reiterated his controversial belief Ukraine should give up territory to end the war with Russia.

In January, he told Slovak public broadcaster RTVS: “There has to be some kind of compromise.

“What do they expect, that the Russians will leave Crimea, Donbas and Luhansk? That’s unrealistic.”

In the same interview, he added Ukraine’s membership of NATO would “merely be a basis for World War Three” and Ukraine was “not an independent and sovereign country” which instead was under the “influence and control” of the US.

Protesters hold Slovak and European Union flags as demonstrators take part in a protest against government changes at public broadcaster RTVS in Bratislava, Slovakia, May 2, 2024. REUTERS/Radovan Stoklasa
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Protests were held in Bratislava this month over potential changes to broadcaster RTVS. Pic: Reuters

Protests against controversial changes to TV and radio

Two weeks ago, thousands of people demonstrated against his controversial overhaul of Slovakia’s radio and TV services.

Critics said it would result in the government taking full control of the media.

The proposed changes would mean the public broadcaster known as RTVS would cease to exist and be replaced by a new organisation.

“If Fico takes control of RTVS, it would mean a decisive step on the way towards Orban and Putin,” Michal Simecka, of the main opposition party Progressive Slovakia, told thousands of protesters in the capital Bratislava.

In April, Mr Fico refused to back the implementation of the EU’s new migration system in his country.

The bloc’s new pact set out new security and asylum procedures as well as proposed quotas.

He said: “We are saying unequivocally that you cannot order a country that it must accept, in the Slovak case, up to 300 migrants you know nothing about, or pay €20,000 per each.”

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Climate-vulnerable islands storm out of COP29 negotiation room in row over funding

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Climate-vulnerable islands storm out of COP29 negotiation room in row over funding

Representatives of dozens of climate vulnerable islands and African nations have stormed out of high-stakes negotiations over a climate funding goal.

Patience is wearing thin and negotiations have boiled over at the COP29 climate talks in Azerbaijan, which were due to finish yesterday but are now well into overtime.

After two weeks of talks, the more than 190 countries gathered in the capital Baku are still trying to agree a new financial settlement to channel money to poorer countries to both curb and adapt to climate change.

Talks have now run well into overtime at COP29, but a deal now feels much more precarious.

The least developed countries like Mozambique and low-lying island nations like Samoa say their calls for a portion of the fund to be allocated to them have been ignored.

Samoa’s minister of natural resources and environment Toeolesulusulu Cedric Schuster is one of the representatives who walked out.

“We are here to negotiate but we have walked out… at the moment we don’t feel we are being heard in there,” he said on behalf of more than 40 small island and developing states, whose shorelines are being lost to rising sea levels.

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Shortly after he made a veiled threat of leaving COP29 altogether, saying: “We want nothing more than to continue to engage, but the process must be INCLUSIVE.

“If this cannot be the case, it becomes very difficult for us to continue our involvement here at COP29.”

Evans Njewa, who chairs a group of more than 40 least developed countries, said the current deal is “unacceptable for us. We need to speak to other developing countries and decide what to do.”

The last official draft on Friday pledged $250bn a year annually by 2035.

This is more than double the previous goal of $100bn set 15 years ago, but nowhere near the annual $1.3trn that experts say is needed.

Sky News understands some developed countries like the UK were this morning willing to bump up the goal to $300bn.

Developing countries are angry not just about the finance negotiations, but also on how to make progress on a pledge from last year to “transition away from fossil fuels”.

A group of oil and producing countries, spearheaded by Saudi Arabia, have tried to dilute that language, while the UK and island state are among those that have fought to keep it in.

Mr Schuster said all things being negotiated contain a “deplorable lack of substance”.

He added: “We need to see progress and follow up on the transition away from fossil fuels that we agreed last year. We have been asked to forget all about that at this COP, as though we are not in a critical decade and as though the 1.5C limit is not in peril.”

“We need to be shown the regard which our dire circumstances necessitate.”

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At least 11 killed in Israeli strikes on central Beirut, Lebanese authorities say

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At least 11 killed in Israeli strikes on central Beirut, Lebanese authorities say

At least 11 people have been killed and 63 injured in an Israeli strike on central Beirut, Lebanese authorities have said.

Lebanon‘s health ministry said the death toll could rise as emergency workers dug through the rubble looking for survivors. DNA tests are being used to identify the victims, the ministry added.

State-run National News Agency (NNA) said the attack “completely destroyed” an eight-storey residential building in the Basta neighbourhood early on Saturday.

Footage broadcast by Lebanon’s Al Jadeed station also showed at least one destroyed building and several others badly damaged around it.

The central Basta neighbourhood in Beirut, where four people were killed in an Israeli airstrike
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The central Basta neighbourhood in Beirut, where four people were killed in an Israeli airstrike

Map of Lebanon and Israel

The Israeli military did not warn residents to evacuate before the attack – the fourth targeting the centre this week.

At least four bombs were dropped in the attack, security sources told Reuters news agency.

The blasts happened at about 4am (2am UK time).

A seperate drone strike in the southern port cuty of Tyre this morning killed one person and injured another, according to the NNA.

The blasts came after a day of bombardment of Beirut’s southern suburbs and Tyre. The Israeli military had issued evacuation notices prior to those strikes.

Pic: AP
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Pic: AP

Israel has killed several Hezbollah leaders in air strikes on the capital’s southern suburbs.

Heavy fighting between Israel and Hezbollah is ongoing in southern Lebanon, as Israeli forces push deeper into the country since launching a major offensive in September.

Read more:
No 10 indicates Netanyahu would be arrested
‘Dozens’ of Palestinians killed in Israeli airstrike

US envoy Amos Hochstein was in the region this week to try to end more than 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, ignited last October by the war in Gaza.

Mr Hochstein indicated progress had been made after meetings in Beirut on Tuesday and Wednesday, before going to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Israel Katz.

According to the Lebanese health ministry, Israel has killed more than 3,500 people in Lebanon and wounded more than 15,000.

It has displaced about 1.2 million people – a quarter of Lebanon’s population – while Israel says about 90 soldiers and nearly 50 civilians have been killed in northern Israel.

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Vladimir Putin vows to increase production of Russia’s ‘unstoppable’ missile – as NATO and Ukraine to hold talks

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Vladimir Putin vows to increase production of Russia's 'unstoppable' missile - as NATO and Ukraine to hold talks

President Vladimir Putin has said Russia will ramp up the production of a new, hypersonic ballistic missile.

In a nationally-televised speech, Mr Putin said the intermediate-range Oreshnik missile was used in an attack on Ukrainian city Dnipro in retaliation for Ukraine’s use of US and British missiles capable of striking deeper into Russian territory.

Referring to the Oreshnik, the Russian president said: “No one in the world has such weapons.

“Sooner or later other leading countries will also get them. We are aware that they are under development.”

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Putin’s warning to the West

Russia war latest: Long-awaited US air defences arrive in Ukraine

He added: “We have this system now. And this is important.”

Detailing the missile’s alleged capabilities, Mr Putin claimed it is so powerful that using several fitted with conventional warheads in one attack could be as devastating as a strike with nuclear weapons.

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General Sergei Karakayev, head of Russia’s strategic missile forces, said the Oreshnik could reach targets across Europe and be fitted with either nuclear or conventional warheads – while Mr Putin alleged Western air defence systems will not be able to stop the missiles.

Mr Putin said of the Oreshnik: “There is no countermeasure to such a missile, no means of intercepting it, in the world today. And I will emphasise once again that we will continue testing this newest system. It is necessary to establish serial production.”

Read more from Sky News:
What are storm shadow missiles?
How bionic limps are helping Ukrainian troops

Testing the Oreshnik will happen “in combat, depending on the situation and the character of security threats created for Russia“, the president added, stating there is “a stockpile of such systems ready for use”.

NATO and Ukraine are expected to hold emergency talks on Tuesday.

Meanwhile Ukraine’s parliament cancelled a session as security was tightened following the strike on Dnipro, a central city with a population of around one million. No fatalities were reported.

EU leaders condemn Russia’s ‘heinous attacks’

Numerous EU leaders have addressed Russia’s escalation of the conflict with Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk saying the war is “entering a decisive phase [and] taking on very dramatic dimensions”.

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Russia’s new missile – what does it mean?

Speaking in Kyiv, Czech foreign minister Jan Lipavsky called Moscow’s strike an “escalatory step and an attempt of the Russian dictator to scare the population of Ukraine and to scare the population of Europe”.

At a news conference, Mr Lipavsky gave his full support for delivering the additional air defence systems needed to protect Ukrainian civilians from the “heinous attacks”.

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