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Kyiv's rebuke of Fico and Tusk's criticism of Berlin
Summary
Two regional disputes surfaced in the days around 11 September 2024, involving Slovakia, Ukraine, Poland and Germany.
What were Ukraine's neighbours arguing about on 11 September 2024? Two disputes, reported in the preceding days, set the political backdrop.
On 9 September 2024, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry expressed "disappointment" over remarks by Slovakia's Prime Minister, Robert Fico. He had asserted that Kyiv should remove "fascist elements" from the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The ministry noted that the rhetoric resembled Russian allegations of present-day neo-Nazism in Ukraine's Azov Brigade.
On 10 September 2024, the Prime Minister of Poland, Donald Tusk, condemned new land border restrictions introduced by Germany. He pointed to Germany's earlier lack of support for other European Union states affected by irregular migration. The remark came amid the Belarus–European Union border crisis.
Taken together, the two episodes showed friction between Kyiv and Bratislava over the language used about Ukraine's military, and between Warsaw and Berlin over migration policy at the border.
