Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico’s life is no longer at risk, but his condition remains “very serious” after he was repeatedly shot in an assassination attempt, medics and ministers said.

As Fico remained in hospital on Thursday morning with grave injuries after hours of surgery, the attempt on his life — the first against a sitting EU leader in more than two decades — continued to reverberate across the continent just three weeks before European parliamentary elections.

The 59-year-old populist, pro-Russia leader was shot multiple times as he greeted people in the town of Handlová, about 190km from the central European country’s capital Bratislava, in an attack that some of his allies linked to the country’s stark political polarisation.