Foreign ‘experts’ plotting coup – leader of EU state

Operatives who participated in the Ukrainian Maidan and in Georgia’s unrest are now active in Slovakia, PM Robert Fico claims

Slovakia will take unspecified precautionary measures against Ukraine-style political unrest that is supposedly being fomented, with a group of foreign coup “experts” having been discovered in the country, PM Robert Fico has claimed.

Fico made the remarks in Bratislava on Tuesday during a joint press conference with Hungarian Prime minister Viktor Orban, citing a confidential report compiled by the Slovak Information Service (SIS) intelligence agency.

“There is a group of experts on the territory of the Slovak Republic that had actively operated in Georgia and during the Maidan in Ukraine,” Fico said, referring to the 2014 Western-backed coup in Kiev that toppled Ukraine’s democratically-elected president Viktor Yanukovich.

It was not immediately clear, with regard to Georgia, whether the PM was referring to the most recent pro-Western protest that unfolded in the country late last year in the wake of a contested general election or to some earlier political turmoil, for instance the so-called 2003 Rose Revolution.

The group of foreign operatives is being “strictly monitored,” Fico revealed, pledging to address the issue with Slovakia’s Security Council on Thursday and to take unspecified yet significant precautionary measures.

The PM accused the country’s opposition and “foreign actors” behind it of seeking to overthrow the government. He did not name explicitly any foreign powers allegedly involved in the affair.

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EU state’s PM warns of new ‘Maidan’

“I cannot disclose the content of the report, but I can say in all seriousness that the opposition is preparing a ‘Maidan.’ It is gearing up to thwart the government from exercising its powers and it will do this in cooperation with foreign actors,” he told the press conference.

Fico unveiled the SIS report earlier on Tuesday ahead of a no-confidence vote staged by the opposition. However, the PM said the document could be only discussed behind closed doors due to its sensitive nature. In protest, the opposition called off the no-confidence motion, promising to launch another one shortly.

The opposition has dismissed the report as a compilation of “conspiracy theories,” with MPs claiming there was nothing actually confidential about it as it contained only information “anyone can find on Google.”

A lawmaker with the Christian Democratic Movement (KDH) Frantisek Miklosko claimed the whole affair was a preparation for a false-flag incident hatched by the government itself.
“It would not be difficult for someone to stage a provocation at an otherwise peaceful demonstration, providing an excuse to claim they’re protecting the state… while beginning to detain individuals based on some list,” the MP reasoned.