By: Janja Strah
We could have expected that at least one part of the Slovenian public would side with Putin. This has, in fact, been the case since the beginning of the aggression against Ukraine – some justify it, others deny it, and still others are sympathising with Ukraine, while attacking the government even more fiercely.
It is probably not difficult to observe that such bizarre opinions are spreading mainly in the ranks of the transitional left. And not only there: they were clung mainly by those who have already attracted attention with their radical anti-vaccine orientation. And, of course, conspiracy theories continue after the covid19 vaccination debates regarding Ukraine. One of the most popular is that Russian forces in Ukraine are merely destroying laboratories to make biological weapons with which globalists are supposed to carry out global genocide. All media reports on attacks on civilian targets, the killing of children, pregnant women and the like are said to be mere fabrications and a scam to divert attention. Well, almost three million refugees could tell a rather different story.
However, Janez Janša’s visit to besieged Kiev has already triggered an offensive by the “other side”. According to the nadlani.si portal, an official of the Russian Foreign Ministry in charge of Southeast Europe has allegedly criticised the alleged plans of Slovenia and Croatia to send weapons to Ukraine. In the like that they are not aware of against whom these weapons will be used. “Russia’s special military operation will achieve its goals, and our European ‘partners’ will have to pay for the damage they have caused to their national interests and the bilateral relations that have developed over the generations,” he said. Well, obviously this is also an insult, because after the change of power in March last year, Slovenia turned away from Moscow, where former Foreign Minister Karl Erjavec often visited.
The mentioned diplomat with a rather unusual (and nothing Russian) surname Phillipson obviously perceived this turn well, as Slovenia hosted Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2016, who visited the Russian Chapel in Vršič in the middle of summer – but of course few people know that there were quite a few Ukrainians among the dead Russian soldiers who gave rise to this chapel. That is why he praises more the activity of the Republika Srpska, which is strongly on the Russian side, which will obviously also affect the aggravated situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Let us remember: the leader of the Bosnian Serbs, Milorad Dodik, is a friend of Milan Kučan.
It is interesting that a similar article was published by the Insider portal, edited by the long-time Mladina journalist Igor Mekina, who in his career has already been lustrated by his own political supporters on Dnevnik. Mekina is married to Serbian journalist Svetlana Vasović-Mekina. Recently, both got involved in the persecution of journalist Luka Perš, who poked into the “holy cow” of Slovenian justice, namely Branko Masleša for his non-existent diploma. And here is the connection with the interests of the Serbian lobby and Putin’s policy. Recall: the mood in Serbia in the matter of Russian aggression against Ukraine is much more on the side of the Kremlin…