The winner of last month’s parliamentary elections in Slovakia has agreed to form a coalition government.

A populist left-wing party led by Robert Fico won the vote with pledges to cut military aid to Ukraine, but denied that it was pro-Russian.

Fico, who previously served as Slovakia’s prime minister, signed a deal with Hlas and SNS on Wednesday.

There are 150 seats in the parliament, and they will control 79 seats together.

Despite the fact that the parties have not yet decided how to fill ministerial posts to form a new government, chaired by Mr Fico, it is clear that Slovakia will end its support for Ukraine.

The Smer party will not send a single round of ammunition to Ukraine if it enters government, Fico promised supporters during the campaign.

Several observers compared Mr Fico to Hungary’s populist right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban due to this, as well as his pledge to resist Western sanctions on Russia.

Meanwhile, the SNS party – full name: Slovak National Party – is led by former parliamentary speaker Andrej Danko, who shares similar views on the war in Ukraine.

According to him, some Russian-occupied territories are not “historically Ukrainian”. In the past, he has also called Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov a “dear friend”.

In addition to migration, Mr Fico has said he wants to tackle the issue of migrants going to western Europe through Slovakia while he is in office.

On issues such as green policies and LGBTQ+ rights, Progressive Slovakia advocates following a liberal line within the EU and offers a vision of an “open, tolerant, cosmopolitan society”.

Pellegrini, the leader of Hlas – a pro-European party – has made clear that any coalition government he joins will keep Slovakia’s basic foreign policy aligned with its NATO and EU membership.

Prior to signing the coalition agreement, he declared that if the government tried to change that, he would leave.

As a result of the murder of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak in 2018, Fico had to resign as prime minister of Slovakia.