An EU lawmaker – and founder of the Slovak Patriot party – has warned his European Parliament colleagues that continuing to send weapons to Ukraine will only get more Slavic people killed. He added that Kiev’s conflict with Russia could eventually trigger a violent revolt against Western Europe.
“We need to stop supporting the killing of Slavs,” Miroslav Radakovsky said on Tuesday as MEPs debated a stalled plan to provide €50 billion ($54.6 billion) in additional EU aid to Ukraine. “Because if we don’t, we Slavs might unite as brothers -- and I believe that we will -- and raze Western Europe to the ground, to the La Manche, a lawn. And I believe no one here wants that to happen.”
Radakovsky is among the most vocal EU critics of funding the Ukraine conflict and cast one of the dissenting ballots when the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly in November 2022 to brand Russia as a “state sponsor of terrorism.” He argued on Tuesday that the Ukraine crisis is “a problem of the US and its global interests.”
“The EU has become a vassal of the US,” Radakovsky said. “We need to start peace talks, but without the US. We need to stop the killing.”
The Slovak politician made his comments as MEPs gathered to debate the bloc’s latest aid package for Ukraine, which Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban vetoed in December. EU leaders have tried to pressure Orban to change his mind before the issue comes up for another vote on February 1. A group of 120 MEPs demanded last week that Hungary be stripped of its voting rights “to protect the values of the European Union.”
MEP Harald Vilimsky, leader of Austria’s Freedom Party, argued on Tuesday that it is “fundamentally wrong” to increase the EU’s budget to provide more aid to Ukraine, especially if the bloc overrides its own voting rules to push through the plan. “With tricks like this, you shouldn’t be surprised if people’s trust in the EU continues to decline.”
Vilimsky added that the EU is continuing to sponsor the Ukraine conflict without making any efforts to bring an end to the bloodshed. “Ukraine has long since become a bottomless barrel,” he said. “Everyone knows that the country also has a massive corruption problem. EU billions are fueling this more than slowing it down.”
Ireland’s Claire Daly told her fellow MEPs that they were helping only the shareholders of defense contractors – not the Ukrainian people -- by prolonging the fighting with Russia. “It is now openly recognized that this conflict could have been stopped in the first few months if the West had not vetoed the peace agreement in April (2022),” she was quoted by TASS as saying. “And you have the courage to claim that this is a help for Ukraine.”
Another MEP from Ireland, Mick Wallace, agreed, saying the European Parliament has “only a handful” of anti-war members, and their amendments calling for increased diplomatic efforts in Ukraine have been voted down. He added that EU lawmakers have supported massive military aid to sustain a “NATO proxy war.”