[jacquesm]

With Orban much reduced in power Fico's days are numbered.

But Orban will hang around, if only to do more of Putin's bidding, it's up to Magyar & the new government now to deal with Orban and his spies in a way that they won't be able to do a come-back.

[tpm]

Not really, Fico has survived a lot during his 4 decades in politics and was always able to adapt (to our detriment). His political survival does not depend on Orban, even though they were close the last couple of years.

[jacquesm]

That's absolutely true. But in a European context he's already vowed that he will now take up Orban's mantel in blockading EU assistance to Ukraine and other tricks. That means he will no longer be able to hide his involvement and I'm pretty sure that the same kind of conversations between Lavrov and Hungarian politicians can be found about Fico & company. They are clearly not acting in Slovakia's long term interests and that's something that can be much more openly discussed. Keeping in mind that Slovakia is only 1/3rd of so of the size economy as Hungary makes it less of a problem to begin with.

Strength to you, it must be super hard to be living under politicians that are ripping off your country in such a blatant manner on behalf of what is nominally now an enemy nation (based on their own statements), especially given what your country had to endure in the years before the fall of the USSR.

[tpm]

I think generally western EU has no idea how unbelievably corrupt these regimes (Fico, Orbana, Babis) are... they are not stealing on behalf of Putin, they are stealing for themselves, and they are oriented towards Russia because they dream of having Putin's unchecked power.

Luckily I don't think Fico will help Putin that much because nobody trusts him anymore, his foreign minister is very weak and as you mention Slovakia is no economical heavyweight. The hardest thing for us is to see the brainwashed masses still voting for Fico or worse still actual nazis.