Ukraine will not be in NATO and will have problems staying in the EU - Slovak defense minister

09:49, 02.01.2026 1 min read

Slovak Defense Minister Robert Kaliniak (Smer-SD – Robert Fico’s center-left pro-Russian party – IF-U) has said that Ukraine will never become a member of NATO and will have problems staying in the EU, TASR, which interviewed Kaliniak on New Year's Eve, has reported.

"The minister also reiterated that Ukraine will never be in NATO. According to him, it will also have a problem staying in the European Union. According to him, the group of states that are helping Ukraine, the so-called coalition of the willing, has not come up with anything. "Did it send soldiers? No. Of course not," Kaliniak said. As he added, Ukraine had a chance to end the war in 2022," TASR quoted Kaliniak as saying.

The head of the Slovak Defense Ministry also criticized the idea of a common defense within the EU.

"Either we are in NATO, and then we don’t need it, or we are in Europe," he said.