Slovakia is shocked after the attempted assassination of its prime minister, the populist Robert Fico, in the city of Handlova, in the center of the country. The politician was shot multiple times when he approached to greet a group of neighbors next to the House of Culture in this town of 17,000 inhabitants. He is in the operating room with five gunshot wounds, according to the EFE Agency.

"He has been shot multiple times and his life is currently in danger," can be read on the Prime Minister's Facebook account, which adds that Fico was taken by helicopter to the town of Banská Bystrica, about 65 kilometers from Handlova, where the attack occurred. stroke.

The attack took place around 1:00 p.m. (in Europe) after a Council of Ministers meeting, in which Fico participated. When he approached to greet the citizens, a 71-year-old man pulled out a gun and shot him. The attacker has a weapons license and shouted at the prime minister to come closer to him. When he had him within range, he fired the shots. A bullet hit his abdominal cavity although witnesses speak of the sternum.

The prime minister was taken by the security team accompanying him to the hospital in Banská Bystrica, the regional capital. The Government assures that his condition is critical and that "the next few hours will be decisive" because he is undergoing a complicated operation.

The Prime Minister of Slovakia is fighting for his life at Roosevelt Hospital, where he is undergoing "a very complicated operation," said Defense Minister Robert Kaliniak, adding that "his condition is extremely serious."

The prime minister suffers multiple trauma that has affected two or more organs. His attacker, Juraj C., a native of Levice, a city located in the southwest of the country, is a member of a literary group and a former security guard at a supermarket, as has emerged so far.

In images that show him after his arrest, he assures that he does not agree "with the government's divorce policies," he said.

Eight years ago this man said that he was going to collect signatures to form a party that he was going to call the Movement against violence. "We can be dissatisfied, but not violent!" he wrote.

The acting president, Zuzana Kaputova, made a call this Wednesday for calm and against the hatred and polarization that currently divides society between left-wing nationalists and the extreme right.

Solidarity, even from Cuba and Russia

The ruler Miguel Díaz-Canel has also reacted to the attack in the Slovak Republic. On his X account (formerly Twitter) he has shared his condemnation of Cuba "in the strongest terms." "I transfer, on behalf of the Cuban people and government, our solidarity and wishes for a speedy recovery," he wrote alongside a photo of Robert Fico.

Condolences continue to pour in from the United Kingdom and Ireland, Croatia and Italy. Even Putin has described what happened as "a horrible crime."

The European Commission, through its president, Ursula Van Der Leyen, has shown its dismay and condemned the "vile attack." In the same line, to the Spanish president Pedro Sánchez He was "horrified" by the attack and showed his support for the Prime Minister of Slovakia, his family and his entire country, in these "extremely difficult" times.

(News in development)