Slovakia: Government calls to punish fictional newspaper

On September 21, 2028, Slovakian Prime Minister Mstislav denied allegations that Russian generals and special forces were in Slovakia. Three days later, the paper Underground Courier (Podzemny Kurier) ran the headline: "Russia attacking republic on all fronts since early morning."

Readers today can learn all about this dark and, of course, make-believe future: The first edition of the Underground Courier was published in August 2024 in Bratislava. It's a media project led by Slovakian journalist Tomas Forro. In each edition, the 45-year-old reporter and other journalists and analysts explore possible scenarios should Russia win the current war against Ukraine and move on to attack Slovakia.

The campaign collected €62,500 ($69,300) on the Slovakian crowdfunding platform startlab.sk before ending on Thursday. All donors will receive a printed copy of the paper. The media project has reached its stated goal to distribute the Underground Courier to readers on a large scale and further editions of the paper are planned. 

Top political office calls for 'countermeasures'

Even before the first edition reached people's doorsteps, its content had already raised eyebrows in the government of populist Prime Minister Robert Fico. In mid-August, a statement by the government office, which organizes the activities of the Slovakian government, read: "These lies are meant to spread chaos and undermine trust in the institutions that safeguard peace and security."

Juraj Gedra, the head of the government office, called for action against the Underground Courier. In a Facebook post in late August, he said the publication was a "distortion of reality" and called for "countermeasures from the Ministry of Culture and security forces" — without offering further details on what steps he wanted taken.

It's worth noting that Gedra co-founded a government campaign promoting respect for differences of opinion that is expected to roll out nationwide this fall.

Restructuring the state

The statements from Gedra, known to be a close associate of Fico, align well with the prime minister's larger strategy. Fico resigned as prime minister in 2018 following mass protests that assigned him and his nominally social democratic party Smer partial blame for the killing of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiance Martina Kusnirova.

Fico was reelected as prime minister in 2023, this time leading a coalition of the left-wing Hlas party and the ultra-nationalist Slovak National Party.

Even with its thin majority, the coalition has been quietly sawing away at the rule of law in Slovakia. Experts were dismissed from leading posts practically overnight, including the director of the Slovak National Theater, Matej Drlicka, and the head of the Slovak National Gallery, Alexandra Kusa.

Despite massive protests, in mid-2024, the government turned the country's public radio and television services into a state-run TV channel with direct governmental control.

In private media, journalists like Forro have also felt the pressure mounting.

Viktor Orban and Hungarian revisionism

Forro's Underground Courier has been particularly vexing for Slovakia's government because it imagines a future in which "Hungarian terrorists" attack southern Slovakia, prompting parts of the territory to secede — much like what happened in parts of Ukraine's Donbas region in 2014.

Although the government has dismissed this scenario as "intimidation," it may not be as far-fetched as it first seems.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has made multiple public appearances in recent years displaying symbols of Greater Hungary — that is, a Hungarian state that extends beyond its current borders. 

In 2022, Orban attended a football match wearing a scarf displaying the Kingdom of Hungary as it existed before World War I, incorporating territories from modern-day Croatia, Austria, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Ukraine — and Slovakia.

Orban has not formally called for revising current borders, and Fico refers to the Hungarian leader as "my friend" when praising the partnership between their two countries. But Orban has never formally rejected the notion of revising its current borders, either.

When earlier this year the extreme-right, neo-fascist Hungarian party Our Homeland Movement called for Hungary to annex Ukraine's share of Transcarpathia in the Zakarpattia Oblast should Ukraine lose in Russia's war of aggression, Orban stayed silent on the matter, not issuing a word of reproach.

Hybrid warfare

Fico, who once referred to Orban's Fidesz party as "chauvinist and revisionist," now keeps pragmatic and cordial ties with his Hungarian counterpart. In foreign and domestic policy, Fico's government has been distancing itself from Western values.

Just this September, while celebrating the 80th anniversary of the Slovak National Uprising during World War II, Fico reaffirmed his nation's commitment to its membership in EU and NATO. But recently, this has meant emphasizing national sovereignty.

Fico discontinued military aid for Ukraine immediately after taking office in 2023, but commercial weapons deliveries were not halted.

Slovakia and Hungary still receive Russian oil, despite existing sanctions. When Kyiv threatened to put an end to this by blocking the pipeline, Bratislava responded by threatening to halt diesel supplies to Ukraine.

Journalist Tomas Forro has been a regular visitor to Ukraine's eastern territory since 2016, speaking with people in unoccupied and Russian-occupied parts of the region for his book "Donbas: Wedding Suite in the Hotel War," and he still serves as a war correspondent from the frontline in Ukraine.

Now, he has invented a word for policies like those Fico has implemented: He calls them "two-way politics." The Underground Courier initiator has publicly warned that "political duplicity" could erode the rule of law and lead to open military violence.

His media initiative offers a provocative view and suggests that Slovakia is already caught in the middle of a hybrid war.

This article was translated from German.