The President of Slovakia spoke to the wounded Fico: "His condition remains incredibly serious"

The newly elected President of Slovakia, Peter Pelegrini, said that he managed to talk to the wounded Prime Minister Robert Fico in hospital.

However, according to him, this does not mean that the danger has passed: Fico's condition remains "incredibly serious" and he was "a hair's breadth from death" after the assassination attempt, the BBC quoted him as saying, citing local press.

If the bullets fired by the attacker had passed just a few millimetres to the right or left, the wounded man would not have had a chance, Pelegrini said.

"He can speak, but he said just a few sentences, and he is very, very tired... The situation is very critical," Pellegrini told reporters gathered at the hospital entrance.

The president assured that doctors would continue to fight for the prime minister's life, but it would be possible to draw conclusions about the success of these attempts only in a few days.

In this regard, the duties and powers of the head of the government have been temporarily assigned to two deputy prime ministers.

Against this backdrop, Pelegrini called on the country's political parties to suspend or even completely curtail preparations for the upcoming European Parliament elections, which will take place from 6 to 9 June.

"If there is one thing the people of Slovakia need today, it is at least a basic agreement and unity of the Slovak political representation," Pelegrini explained his request, "Maybe not a consensus, but please, at least discussions among themselves should be conducted in a civilised manner.

The Minister of the Interior of Slovakia, Matusz Szutai Eštok, also addressed the reporters gathered outside the hospital.

Calling the man arrested for the attack on the prime minister a "lone wolf" who did not belong to any political group, the Interior Minister asked journalists and other media workers to "think separately" about how they covered the government's policies.

The attack on Fico took place in Handlova in front of the House of Culture, where a meeting of the Slovak government was taking place. As the prime minister was walking through the crowd, a man called out to him by name, then pulled out a gun and shot him five times from a distance of less than a metre. Fico was hit by three bullets – two in the stomach and one in the shoulder. The police immediately wrestled the attacker to the ground.

The attempt on the prime minister's life was made by Slovak writer Juraj Cintula, TV Markíza reported. The man was detained by police on the spot.

Cintula is 71 years old and lives in Levice, where he founded a literary club. A member of the Association of Slovak Writers since 2015, he has published three collections of poetry and two books of prose.

He had a legally registered gun, which he used to open fire.

In the video after his arrest, he claims that he did it because he "disagrees with the government's policy".

Robert Fico took office as Prime Minister of Slovakia in October 2023. The media often call Fico a pro-Russian politician. In particular, in his speech on the second anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, he said that the war in Donbas began because of "rampant Ukrainian neo-Nazis" and that "the Russian president had no other choice" as NATO expanded eastwards. "And in order to stop this process, Putin started a full-scale war," Fico said.