A four-year pause ends

Slovakia has resumed cooperation with Russia at the level of military attachés, a channel that had been interrupted since Russia's full-scale attack on Ukraine, according to Focus. The Slovak defence ministry confirmed the restart, and Defence Minister Robert Kalinák carried out the arrangement agreed between Prime Minister Robert Fico and Vladimir Putin when Fico visited Moscow in May. Fico had promised Putin that the posts would be restored, and Focus describes the government as keeping that promise quietly. A military attaché is officially responsible for contacts between armed forces and governments, monitors developments in security and defence, and accompanies military cooperation, which is why the post is considered sensitive.

The officer exchange

Aktuality reported that Bratislava has already sent two Slovak officers to Moscow, although Focus describes them as soldiers. In return, a Russian officer is on his way to the Slovak capital. According to available information, the Slovak officer sent to Moscow previously served a mission in the United States. The Russian officer is described as an experienced naval officer who worked earlier at the Russian post in Rome and spent his last years in Moscow. Kalinák's ministry thus completes the exchange that Fico and Putin had discussed, ending a diplomatic freeze that ABC describes as lasting four years.

The expelled attaché

The last Russian military attaché in Slovakia, Sergei Solomasov, was expelled after handing money to Bohusz Garbar, a local journalist working for the Hlavné správy website, in exchange for publishing disinformation during the election campaign, according to ABC. Focus, citing a video leaked to the investigative outlet Denník N, shows the diplomat handing 1000 euros to a freelance contributor of Hlavné správy, and says Solomasov had also served as a lieutenant colonel in the Russian military intelligence service GRU. Wnp.pl reports that Garbar was later convicted of espionage. In March 2022, shortly after the invasion began, Slovakia expelled three Russian diplomats and ordered 35 other members of the Russian diplomatic mission to leave, according to ABC. The Eduard Heger government expelled the attaché together with other diplomats, as wnp.pl recalls. Then foreign minister Miroslav Wlachovsky described the case in these words:

“This diplomat, or rather a person with diplomatic cover, had a developed network of collaborators here and tried to influence public opinion and the situation before the elections.”

Opposition warnings

The opposition has criticised the government's decision, with wnp.pl and ABC reporting that it calls the move a very bad decision. Focus describes the step as a dangerous one with high risks. Opposition politicians warn about the arrival of a Russian spy in Bratislava, pointing to the return of a Russian attaché after the earlier expulsions. The government has not yet responded to these warnings in the reporting available.

Timeline

The sequence of events runs from the March 2022 expulsions to the May meeting in Moscow and the officer exchange reported on 9 October.