Article on Slovakia in Russian media. 

 A Friend Lost? 

It is well known that the Russian pro-government media reporting on events taking place in other countries is always couched in the context of that nation’s relationship with Russia, or with the West – with which the Russian state has long been in conflict. The activities of individual political actors are judged by their attitude towards Russia and its policies, and whether they are too inclined to support its rivals in the international arena. Slovakia is no exception. Rather, as the local scene is somewhat more diverse than in some other countries, there is a wider choice of political actors with different attitudes towards Moscow. An illustrative example of how the aforementioned optics are utilised is in the evaluation of the results of the February Slovak parliamentary elections by the Russian media. The dominant context proved to be their possible impact on Slovakia’s policy towards Russia. In the period 2016-2020, the Russian media positively portrayed three... (Visegrad Insight, March 2020).