Our next guest is one of the three European leaders who visited Kyiv
to meet with President Zelenskiy about two weeks ago
to express their support for Ukraine. You can see him here in blue.
Janez Janša is the Prime Minister of Slovenia and joins me now
from the capital Ljubljana.
How did you find President Zelenskiy when you saw him?
Good morning. We found President Zelenskiy determined to fight.
And after our visit
I'm 100% convinced that Ukraine will win.
Time is of the essence, because people are dying every day.
We have to do everything we can to support and help them
defend themselves.
We need to find the solution, don't we? Everybody wants an end to this.
What do you understand
to be the details of Ukraine's proposals for Russia
after yesterday's talks? And what do you make of that proposal?
When we spoke with President Zelenskiy,
Prime Minister Shmyhal and their colleagues,
that Ukraine, after what happened,
they are prepared to change the constitution,
and propose to their nation
a referendum, abandoning their wish to join NATO.
But at the same time they want institutional guarantees
for their security.
They see these institutional guarantees for the security
in the full membership of the EU
and stronger guarantees from world powers than they got
in the Budapest Memorandum in 1994.
Can you just be a little clearer about that?
I think that they sadly realized
that they need NATO now.
And they don't have it. Neither membership or Article 5 guarantees.
So why stick with this goal?
Currently it's not helping them.
They made a pragmatic decision.
Because after they win this war,
NATO will want them to join.
The situation will be quite different than it is.
When they win this war, the Ukrainian army will be one of the strongest
armies if not the strongest on the European continent apart from Russia.
This last sentence is also questionable.
I think now the ball is in our court.
We have to provide them with a track to full membership
and NATO members or democratic countries across the world
to support Ukraine with as much military help as possible.
This is the only thing that will stop the war. -Let's talk about that.
The US is working with Slovakia to identify the requirements
that will allow them to give S-300s to Ukraine.
Many countries have been hesitant to send Soviet-era
air defense systems to Ukraine.
Is the hesitation due to the possibility that that would provoke
Russia to extend this assault into Europe?
And do you support any offers of S-300s? For example
the Turks have said they are not sending their S-400s.
They need their own defense. Do you support
any offer of S-300 air defense missile systems to Ukraine?
Yes I do support this.
This is equipment that Ukraine needs the most,
because they are against the defense for the mid
and high altitudes and Russia
is dominating those two parts of the sky.
So I support this. But I don't support
speaking a lot about what we're giving them.
I'm supporting strongly to deliver and not speak about it.
Some countries are helping and are not speaking about this help
and there are some countries which are speaking and unfortunately
are reluctant to do something.
Do you want to be a bit more specific?
Well,
for the countries that are helping and don't want to speak about it,
I don't want to be specific.
For those countries that are reluctant to help,
we don't know for sure, which countries these are,
because they are delivering the help, but they are denying it publicly
because of different reasons. -This is really interesting.
I don't mean to butt in,
but this is really interesting, because we're being told
that there's a big sense of unity. There has been a real coming-together
by Europe and the US, by NATO allies to ensure
this kind of pincer-like reaction
on Russia. Are you telling me that behind the scenes
everything is not as unified in Europe as we might be led to believe?
Our unity is much bigger than expected, especially
bigger than it was expected from the Kremlin.
It was also bigger than I expected,
because I was aware of the details.
Russian aggression really found us unprepared.
But if we calculate everything we are doing,
I don't think it is enough.
I strongly support the demand
that President Zelenskiy delivered during our last NATO Summit,
when he asked for 1%
of our military reserves
to be able to defend themselves. We aren't together on that,
we're not giving them 1% of our reserves.
Some countries yes, some countries want more. -I understand.
But not all.
Your country is one of Europe's most dependent countries
in terms of Russian oil and gas imports.
But you've expressed support for Europe's push to phase out
that dependance.
What are you doing to achieve that? What will the short-term shock effects
look like in Slovenia?
Well, thank God, the spring is coming and the winter is over.
We are doing everything we can to get rid of this dependency
till the end of this year.
We are speaking with neighboring countries, with other countries,
about the alternative sources and supply routes.
We will build another pipeline.
Yesterday, I visited our neighbor Croatia. We discussed,
with the increase of energy terminal in their country
to be able to supply Slovenia
and some other Central European countries.
I think that
finishing the dependency on the Russian energy sources
will happen much sooner than the Kremlin is expecting.
But currently we are facing a really sad story,
because with the payments for the Russian gas, oil and coal
we are practically financing the aggression and the war.
Are you prepared to pay for Russian energy in rubles
while you are still dependent on it?
No, nobody in Europe is prepared to pay in roubles,
this is also against the contracts which were signed
and I think that the message from our ministers was very clear.
I saw the message from the G7 ministers.
Nobody will pay in rubles, I believe.
Actually, we don't know what they look like.
Prime Minister, it's good to have you on. I know you are a busy man.
I really appreciate it. Thank you.