BRATISLAVA, April 4. /TASS/. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico called for lifting sanctions on imports of gas and oil from Russia in a post on his Facebook page (owned by Meta Platforms Inc., recognized as an extremist organization and banned in Russia).

"The European Union and the European Commission should immediately restore dialogue with Russia and ensure a political and legal environment that would allow individual EU member states and the European Union as a whole to compensate for the shortage of gas and oil reserves and make possible supplies of this strategic raw material from all possible sources and directions, including Russia," the prime minister’s post said.

"Therefore, all meaningless sanctions banning imports of gas and oil from Russia should be lifted, an independent EU initiative to accelerate the end of the war in Ukraine should be launched, and decisive steps should be taken to restore the operation of the Druzhba oil pipeline," he added.

Oil supplies to Slovakia and Hungary via the Druzhba pipeline through Ukraine were halted on January 27. The Slovak government declared an oil emergency in the country.