The date is September 21, 2028, when the Slovak prime minister rejects claims that Russian army generals were in Slovakia together with armed members of the special forces.
Three days later, the newspaper "Subzemni Kurir" wrote: "Russia has been attacking the entire territory of the republic since morning."
It is a dark scenario of the future - of course, fictional. But it was really published in the "newspaper". At the end of August this year, the first edition of "The Underground Courier" was published in Bratislava.
It is a media project of Slovak journalist Tomas Foro (45). That reporter and several other journalists and analysts are playing with scenarios in the event that Russia defeats Ukraine and then invades Slovakia.
The "Underground Courier" project collected over sixty thousand euros on one Slovak platform. All donors will receive a hard copy. The project has already achieved one goal – mass distribution. Further editions of the newspaper are planned.
The head of the government office calls for "countermeasures"
Even before the printing of the first edition, the idea and content caused dissatisfaction in the government of the populist Prime Minister Robert Fitz.
A statement from the government office that organizes the activities in mid-August states: "These lies are aimed at spreading chaos and undermining trust in the institutions that protect peace and security."
Juraj Gedra, the head of the government office, wants to take steps against the "Underground Courier". In a video on Facebook, he said that this announcement was a "manipulation of reality" and called for "countermeasures by the Ministry of Culture and the security forces", but he was not specific.
It is interesting that Gedra is one of the initiators of the government campaign called "I respect a different opinion", which will be launched throughout the country this autumn.
Restructuring of the state
The call for censorship fits into Prime Minister Robert Fitz's strategy. He resigned in 2018 after mass protests because he and his social democratic party SMER were accused of complicity in the murder of Slovak investigative journalist Jan Kucijak and his fiancee Martina Kušnirova.
Fico is back in power from the fall 2023 election. This time with a left-right coalition. Fico barely survived the assassination in May.
With a narrow parliamentary majority, his coalition is still trying to transform the rule of law in Slovakia.
Experts were removed overnight from management positions, for example in the Slovak National Theater and the National Gallery.
Despite mass protests, in the summer of 2024, the Slovak public radio-television was transformed by law into a state television with direct influence of the government. Journalists in private media are also under pressure. Like Foro, for example.
Orban with Great Hungarian symbolism
He caused the government's displeasure, first of all, because his "Underground Courier" created a scenario of an invasion of "Hungarian terrorists" in southern Slovakia, which would then lead to the secession of that part of the country - similar to what happened in parts of the Donbass in eastern Ukraine in 2014. .
But, although the Slovak government office condemned such a scenario as "intimidation of the population", there are real reasons for the fantasy.
Because Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has appeared several times in recent years with the symbols of Greater Hungary, for example at a football match in 2022 with a scarf showing the borders of the former Great Hungary before the First World War: with parts of Croatia, Austria, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Ukraine - and Slovakia.
Officially, Orban is not calling for a revision of the borders. The Hungarian Prime Minister even calls Fico a "friend" and praises the Hungarian-Slovak partnership. However, he does not explicitly distance himself from the idea of revising the borders.
When the right-wing Hungarian party "Our Homeland" called for the Ukrainian region of Transcarpathia to be annexed to Hungary in January 2024 if Ukraine loses the war, no words of condemnation were heard from Orban.
Hybrid war – already now
In any case, Tomaš Foro knows what he is talking about when he designs the Donbas scenario for southern Slovakia. Since 2016, he has traveled to the eastern Ukrainian region several times and has written a book about it. He is still a war correspondent from Ukraine.
Prime Minister Robert Fico, who a few years ago described Orbán's Fidesz as a "chauvinistic and Great Hungarian party", now maintains a pragmatic and friendly relationship with Orbán.
In terms of domestic and foreign policy, Fitz's government is distancing itself from Western values.
The Fitz government suspended state military aid to Ukraine immediately after taking office in October 2023. However, commercial arms deliveries are supposed to continue.
Despite current EU sanctions, Slovakia and Hungary receive Russian oil. To Kiev's announcement that it would stop evading sanctions by cutting the gas pipeline, Bratislava responded by threatening to stop diesel deliveries to Ukraine.
Tomaš Foro talks about the "two-way policy" of Slovakia. Political duplicity can lead to the erosion of the rule of law and open military violence, warns the initiator of the "Underground Courier".
His media initiative makes it clear with his provocative narrative: Slovakia is already in the middle of a hybrid war.
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