Ukraine-sceptic Pellegrini Officially Wins in Slovak Presidential Election With 53.12% of Votes
"Peter Pellegrini is in first place [according to the results of the second round of the presidential vote] with 53.12 percent," Burda said during the announcement of the official election results. "Based on the results of the vote, Peter Pellegrini was elected president."
Pellegrini's main opponent, former Slovak Foreign Minister Ivan Korcok, who vocally supports Ukraine, won 46.87 percent of the vote. Korcok led in the first round of the presidential election on March 23 with 42.51 percent of the votes, with Pellegrini on 37.02 percent.
Earlier, Pellegrini said Slovakia's new position on Ukraine under the coalition government led by Prime Minister Robert Fico was realistic.
"The Slovak government has taken a realistic position, seeing that in two years we have not made any progress. Every day dozens, hundreds and possibly thousands of military personnel are being killed there," Pellegrini said.
"Ukraine, of course, is also attacking Russian territory and there are also women, children and old people being killed. This cannot go on," he stressed. "We said: let's stop the shooting and start some kind of peace talks."
Pellegrini also stated that Ukraine cannot join NATO and that he would not allow the Slovak military to be sent to Ukraine.
Fico's government has decided to focus on humanitarian aid and halt arms supplies to Ukraine.