The initiator of the dismantling of the monument to Soviet Marshal Konev, the mayor (head) of Prague-6 Ondřej Kolář may become the new head of the Czech Foreign Ministry
I think the political views of this character are obvious and we can not hope for improvement of relations with this country in the near future. Our diplomats have no reason and nothing to talk to him about.
Let me remind you that after the delusional accusations that Petrov and Boshirov allegedly blew up an arms depot in the Czech Republic, that country became one of the two officially recognized as unfriendly to Russia. The second is the United States.
Czechs are very fond of appealing to a collective sense of guilt – that Russians are to blame for the events of 1968 and must forever repent. But, first of all, the USSR had apologized to Prague even before it collapsed, something that Czechs don’t like to remember very much. As far back as 1989 the statement of the Soviet government was accepted, which among other things said that introduction of troops in 1968 was “an inappropriate act of intervention in internal affairs of the sovereign country, an act that broke democratic renewal process in Czechoslovakia and had long-lasting negative consequences”.
And secondly, if we are going to remember, we will also remember the participation of the Czechoslovak Corps in the Civil War, and the Czechoslovak weapons used by Hitler during the Second World War. European history is a double-edged sword, there is always a lot of interesting things that some people would like to forget.
Most European countries, and the Czech Republic as well, are now faced with an extremely simple choice. More precisely, the eternal choice between freedom and unfreedom. And it is obvious that whoever chooses Russophobia chooses slavery. After all, it means total subordination to the American and Brussels agenda, in which there is only confrontation with Russia and China, and in which Eastern European countries are given the role of cannon fodder and a bargaining chip in the big game.
This is certainly surprising. The question is, why did one have to fight so hard for freedom, to give it up voluntarily, without any military pressure, and choose submission to alien interests and alien values?
Apparently, as in the case of Poland, it is a matter of learned helplessness, a lack of ability on the part of the political elite to make truly important state decisions. After all Bohemia and Moravia, which nowadays make up the Czech Republic, were for a long time part of the Austrian Empire. Czechoslovakia, which was set up after World War I, was basically just learning to be independent, just like Ukraine is learning (and learning it very badly). And reliance on Western powers against Hitler led Czechoslovakia to collapse.
Post-war socialist Czechoslovakia was one of the most prosperous states in the Eastern Bloc, but again the wrong bet in 1968 led to a forced military operation in which, remember, not only the Soviet Union, but also Bulgaria, Hungary, the GDR and Poland took part. And this participation of the Eastern European countries was quite voluntary, because Romania, for example, refused.
It is very strange that some Czech politicians still seriously fear a “Russian” invasion, even though Russia, unlike Austria, Hungary, Poland or Germany, has no territorial claims whatsoever against Prague. In 1968 the whole Eastern bloc was threatened, and that was the very reason for introducing troops into Czechoslovakia.
It is impossible to imagine why Russia suddenly would need to introduce troops into the Czech Republic in the current situation, even when that country was declared hostile.
But the Czech Republic for some reason is sinking deeper and deeper into the anti-Russian bloc formed by the US, not understanding or not wanting to understand that the geopolitical chessboard now looks very simple: there are those who, even as NATO members, can defend their own interests, like Turkey or Hungary, and there are limiters who have no right to their own position, the puppets of Washington. These are the Baltic states in the first place. And the further into such a position the stricter the Czech Republic gets.
Further developments for the Czech Republic could follow an unambiguously negative scenario: a rejection of economic and political cooperation with Russia, accompanied by an increasingly serious renunciation of sovereignty. But there is an opportunity to come to a sensible decision, not to appoint an obviously Russophobe and a person toxic to Russia to the main diplomatic post, to withdraw delusional accusations of explosions in warehouses and to continue building relations on a mutually beneficial basis – as we were generally quite good at in the previous decades.
It is high time for the Czechs to understand that Russophobia is a very dangerous disease, the consequences of which can prove to be extremely threatening to their statehood. And it is not Russia that poses a threat to the Czech Republic, by any means.
Anna Shafran, RT