A senior member of Slovakia’s ruling Smer party has drawn parallels between Ukraine and Hamas during a heated television discussion.
Tibor Gašpar, deputy head of Smer and a parliament member, made the comparison while defending Prime Minister Robert Fico’s position on the Russo-Ukrainian war during a debate with opposition leader Michal Šimečka of Progressive Slovakia.
Relations between Ukraine and Slovakia have been increasingly strained since Robert Fico returned to power in late 2023, primarily due to his government’s justifications for Russian actions. Fico has publicly defended Russia’s full-scale invasion by citing “serious security reasons” related to “NATO enlargement”, echoing Kremlin narratives, and has blamed the West for “prolonging” the conflict rather than weakening Russia.
The relationship has been further complicated after Ukraine halted Russian gas transit through its territory to Europe at the end of 2024, prompting Fico to threaten retaliatory measures.
Slovakia continues to import Russian gas and opposes EU sanctions on Russia and EU military aid to Ukraine.
According to the Slovak publication Aktuality.sk., Fico has previously stated that Russia’s full-scale invasion violates international law, but recently suggested Moscow had justifications for its actions. Gašpar elaborated on this stance during the program.
“Robert Fico […] considers the start of the war in Ukraine a violation of international law, but he also said, unlike Mr. Šimečka, who in his previous statement said this was unjustified aggression, I believe quite the opposite. This is provoked aggression,” Gašpar stated.
The deputy emphasized that Fico has long characterized the conflict as “provoked,” not merely in recent statements. Gašpar then drew his controversial comparison to the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel.
“This is the same kind of provoked conflict as when terrorists from Palestine attacked Israel. The war developed in absolutely the same way,” he declared during the broadcast.
Opposition politician Šimečka immediately challenged this characterization, questioning whether Gašpar was seriously suggesting that “Ukrainians broke into Russia and killed a thousand civilians,” referencing the casualties from the Hamas attack.
The 7 October Hamas attack involved a non-state militant group launching a terrorist assault against Israel that killed approximately 1,200 people and resulted in hostage-taking. This triggered a severe Israeli military response, which eventually led to over 50,000 Palestinians killed, according to the UN data.
Meanwhile, on 24 February 2022, a sovereign state, Russia, began a full-scale aggression against another sovereign state, Ukraine, with a goal of “protecting Russian-speaking population in eastern Ukraine” against a “fascist Kyiv regime,” proven to be a false propagandist narrative.
However, the war’s roots trace back to 2014 with Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea and support for separatists in Donbas.
Thousands of Palestinians and Ukrainians died from strikes on civilian infrastructure, hospitals, and residential areas throughout the ongoing conflicts.
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