Marian Kotleba is a Slovak politician and head of the far-right, neo-Nazi Political party Kotlebists – People’s Party Our Slovakia (ĽSNS). He acted as the governor of Banská Bystrica Region from 2013 to 2017. He was also a presidential contender in the 2019 election, in which he concluded fourth. ĽSNS is considered a pro-Russian party.
Kotleba is known for his empathy towards Russia having slogans during his presidential movement in 2019 such as “For Slavic unity, against war with Russia” and reporting on national television that “Bashar Al-Assad is a hero of the Middle East”. Kotleba also made journeys to Syria, having met with its speaker of parliament and foreign minister.
It was disclosed upon his departure from the Banská Bystrica governorship from the documents found there, that he enjoyed sending a letter to the Russian ambassador, in which he asked for help and profoundly wrote about his intention to purchase a Russian car. He also spoke critically of USA intervention in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Libya, and Syria, after reading all of the United States’ involvement in regime change in the Slovak Parliament.
Marian Kotleba, the chairman of the extremist party Kotlebovci-ĽSNS, also condemned NATO while reacting to the ratification of the membership of Finland and Sweden in NATO in the Slovak Parliament. He directs to NATO as a criminal organization and criticises 126 (of the 150) MPs who voted in favour of membership as traitors. He notices NATO enlargement as a step towards dragging Slovakia into a fight with Russia. The situation development is considered to be following a plan of the globalists who desire to unleash a war with the Russian Federation according to Kotleba.
On 5 May 2016, the ĽSNS unit located in the Banská Bystrica region hung up a Russian banner in the city of Banská Bystrica, to demonstrate solidarity with the Russian community in the city and the Night Wolves biker club which came to celebrate the Russian victory over fascism. Several media platforms such as Pluska and Denník N blamed the Kotleba’s party for being funded by Russian intelligence services.
The Polish Internal Security Agency was the first to come with this proof after the arrest of Mateusz Piskorski. The party rejected all of these claims, describing the party’s place of neutrality in regards to the United States and Russia, but firmly resisting any aggression against Russia or its government, blaming the US for being the main supporter of terrorism across the world and NATO of being an actual assailant against Russia.
