\n<\/p>\n
Despite warnings from European Union officials, Slovakia\u2019s Moscow-friendly prime minister, Robert Fico, shook hands with Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin before becoming the only EU leader to attend Russia\u2019s 9 May parade of military forces waging war on Ukraine.<\/p>\n
The Serbian president, Aleksandar Vu\u010di\u0107, whose country aspires to join the 27-nation bloc, also accepted the Russian president\u2019s invitation to attend the annual Victory Day celebrations marking the defeat of Nazi Germany in the second world war.<\/p>\n
The pair were the only European leaders to travel to Moscow after strong injunctions from EU officials not to do so. On Thursday, the bloc\u2019s chief diplomat, Kaja Kallas, said: \u201cAll those who truly support peace cannot stand side-by-side with Putin. Those who truly support peace should be in Ukraine tomorrow, not Moscow.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kallas added this week that the Russian president was \u201cwaging a war right now, not a war from history. That remains on the conscience of those attending\u201d.<\/p>\n
Donald Tusk, who later on Friday was due to sign a cooperation and friendship treaty with France including joint security and defence commitments, sharply criticised both leaders, although did so without naming them.<\/p>\n
The Polish prime minister said: \u201cFor me it is unthinkable that one can be from this part of the world and \u2013 during Russia\u2019s aggression against Ukraine \u2013 be in Red Square and celebrate Victory Day with those who are murdering children, civilians and attacking other countries.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is unclear what, if any, sanctions the EU could apply to either Bratislava or Belgrade. Ant\u00f3nio Costa, the president of the European Council, is due to visit the Serbian capital on Monday. An EU official in Brussels suggested he would express criticism of the visits, saying: \u201cWe don\u2019t engage only to pass easy and good messages.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kallas said last month that participation in the 9 May celebrations in Moscow would \u201cnot be taken lightly on the European side\u201d. She called on representatives of EU member states and candidate countries to mark the day in Ukraine instead.<\/p>\n
The EU foreign affairs chief was one of a 17-strong EU delegation of foreign ministers, including UK foreign secretary David Lammy, in Lviv on Friday to honour the victims of Russia\u2019s war and back a special tribunal to investigate alleged Russian war crimes<\/a>.<\/p>\n Fico, who last met Putin in December, said in April that \u201cnobody will tell me where to go and where not to go\u201d. He said he was going to \u201ca commemorative event, that\u2019s all\u201d, to \u201cpay homage to thousands of Red Army soldiers who died liberating Slovakia\u201d.<\/p>\n The Slovakian prime minister, who has adopted Kremlin lines and sided with Hungary\u2019s illiberal leader, Viktor Orb\u00e1n, as a pro-Russian voice in the EU, also took part in bilateral meetings and attended a wreath laying ceremony in Moscow.<\/p>\n