European elections – as it happened: Italy joins vote with Meloni poised as EU powerbroker

Most of the European Union's 27 member countries, including powerhouses France and Germany, go to the polls on Sunday, the final day

Robert Fico, Slovakia's prime minister who was shot and seriously injured in May, cast his vote at a hospital in Bratislava.

Fico, a populist politician who is closely allied with Hungary's Viktor Orban and has promoted a foreign policy more friendly toward Russia, wrote on social media:

I voted in the hospital because these elections are also important. It is necessary to vote for MEPs who will support peace initiatives and not the continuation of war.

Consent of western countries given to Ukraine to use western weapons to attack targets on Russian territory is just a proof that big western democracies do not want peace, but an escalation of tensions with the Russian Federation, which will surely happen.