Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, Europe’s toughest player of military support for Ukraine, was shot multiple times Does 15 by an as yet unnamed aggressor. He was flown by plane to a trauma center in Banska Bystrica, where he is battling for his career.  , His problem is never known.
Few , facts have been published about the did- be killer, who was captured after the event.  , Officially a 71- year- aged guy used a legitimately- owned weapon.  , The shooting took place at a secret government off- page gathering in Handlova, and it is not known how the gunman , learned of and , gained admittance to the , closed , occasion.  ,
It is the first time a German head of state has been shot since 1986’s death of Swedish Prime Minister Olaf Palme.
In a alliance led by his Direction- Cultural Democracy party and two other parties, Fico took office in 2023 after serving twice as prime minister. He opposed shipping American arms to Ukraine through Slovak , place and , has opposed the delivery of Western arms to Ukraine. Instead, Fico said in a September 2023 interview,  ,” Why do n’t we force the warring parties, use the weight of the EU and the US to make them sit down and find some sort of compromise that would guarantee security for Ukraine”?
The Czech Republic does follow Slovakia’s opposition to the Ukraine conflict after next year’s legislative election. Andrej Babis ‘ ANO party , has a significant result in voting elections. In opposition to US and European Commission funding for Ukraine, Slovakia and Hungary are forming a bloc with Czechia and Serbia.
The firing recalls the July 31, 1914,  , assassination , of , French Socialist head Jean Jaurès, his government’s leading defender of battle after the death of Austria’s Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo the past month.  , He was shot at a Paris café , by an alleged lone gunman.
So , far,  , we have only questions about the shooting of Fico and no answers. But the strategic background to , Ukraine’s military position is dire, the country’s military itself reports, as undermanned and exhausted Ukrainian units succumb to the relentless pounding of Russian air attacks and artillery.
The salient facts surrounding Kharkov are not in dispute, though it is unclear what Russia is trying to do with their reconnaissance force. NATO countries do not have enough shells and air defense missiles, and Ukraine does not have sufficient manpower, to push back Russia’s crawling offensive.
The Biden Administration wo n’t hold back as the most significant military conflict since Vietnam turns ugly. Ukraine has a greater significance than Vietnam, despite the absence of American body bags.
Two years ago, the West predicted that sanctions would scuttle the Russian economy and that its advanced weapons would defeat the Russian army. Instead, the West faces a Russian military that has been revitalized and who has demonstrated ingenuity in adapting to the battlefield, as well as, worst of all, the humiliation of a shriveled defense industrial base that is unable to produce enough weapons to match Russian output.
The Biden Administration will be concerned about the impact of a Ukrainian defeat in the November elections, but it has deeper concerns about how credible American leadership is in Europe and other countries.
The US and its allies have many options, none of them salubrious. One is to assist Ukraine in carrying out important Russian attacks, a hawks ‘ agenda in America. Another option is to directly or, as some have suggested, through a mercenary force of trained Western pilots flying Western aircraft against the Russians.
For the obvious reason that they might lead to a wider war, the Biden Administration has declined to take these actions. Before Russia appeared to have won,  , The attempted assassination of a determined,  , credible , and duly elected East European leader might prove , to be , the writing on the wall.