Of the many bilateral meetings that Russian President Vladimir Putin held on the sidelines of the SCO summit, one of the more significant was with Slovakian Primer Minister Robert Fico. Putin began by stating: “We greatly appreciate the independent foreign policy that you and your government are pursuing,” in not joining in the rampant Russophobia sweeping most of Europe. “What we see now are never-ending attempts to fuel hysteria over Russia’s alleged intention to attack Europe,” Putin said. “I believe that reasonable people dismiss this as an obvious provocation or total incompetence, because any reasonable person understands perfectly well that Russia has never had, does not have and will never have any desire to attack anyone.” He later reiterated: “Regarding Russia’s ‘aggressive plans’ towards Europe, I would like to emphasize once again that this is complete nonsense without any basis whatsoever.”