Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico is asking to remove a Slovak businessman linked to the Night Wolves biker group from a European sanctions list after he was added for promoting Moscow’s interests.
Mr Hambálek is a motorcycle lover, that is the only thing you can blame him for, nothing else.
Fico plans to open the topic at a meeting with the German chancellor in Berlin on Tuesday.
“I informed the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen that we will raise the issue of the citizen of the Slovak Republic, Mr Hambálek, who is the only EU citizen included on the sanctions list.”
The EU included the Slovak businessman in the sanctions list in the summer of 2022.
Jozef Hambálek is the president of the Europe chapter of the nationalist motorcycle club Nightwolves MC based in Slovakia. He can be connected to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and other representatives of the Russian government.
The US government blames the Night Wolves for Crimea’s 2014 handover to Russia and the separatist revolt in eastern Ukraine.
In 2018, Russian leaders of the parent organisation Night Wolves introduced Hambálek’s biker club as their “European headquarters.” Moreover, Hambálek met Putin in Crimea during a biker show in August 2017.
Fico’s plans to remove Hambálek from the sanctions list came a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin had praised his and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s political style.
“Fico and Orbán are not pro-Russian politicians, they are pro-national politicians protecting their interests. There are no such politicians any more, the rest depends on ‘the big brother’, the USA.”
Hambálek has long-term contacts with Smer politicians, especially Slovakian Defence Minister Robert Kaliňák, both of them “passionate bikers.”
