Defiant Czechs seek to harden EU stance towards Russia

The measure of success for the Czech government as it steers the European Union presidency for the next six months will be how much it helps Ukraine to “win” the war against Russia, its ministers have declared.

Czechia, one of the top donators of military aid to Ukraine since the invasion, has set the strengthening of EU defence as one of its highest priorities as it takes up the role of chairing EU councils, brokering agreements, and driving the union’s policy agenda.

“The European Union is standing behind Ukraine, and we will do our maximum to see Ukraine win in its fight against Putin’s Russia,” defence minister Jana Černochová told journalists in an event marking the start of the presidency. “It is in the interest of us all that the war ends as soon as possible and that Ukraine is victorious.”

In a visible expression of solidarity, Ukrainian flags adorn windows and balconies across the Czech capital and are flown from official buildings including the foreign ministry, alongside the Czech colours of blue, red, and white.

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The country has registered 400,000 Ukrainian refugees since February 24th — some 4 per cent of its prior population — and officials are braced for a difficult winter as the population faces inflation, strained school capacities, and potential energy shortages if Russia cuts crucial pipeline gas supplies to the landlocked country that threw off totalitarian communist rule in 1989.

The centre and centre-right coalition government of prime minister Petr Fiala, which has steered the country onto a pro-EU and pro-western course after ousting the populist Andrej Babiš last year, says it is determined to push back against any creeping “Ukraine fatigue”, whether among its population or other EU governments.

This will include steering fellow EU states towards a seventh package of sanctions against Russia and maintaining focus on the need to support Ukraine, including with weapons supplies.

Confidential details

Czechia has kept the details of its transfers of military equipment to Ukraine to help it fight the invasion confidential, but they have included tanks and attack helicopters, going further than most other EU member states.

The government has declined to offer a view on what a “win” for Ukraine would look like, saying it is inappropriate for other countries to comment, as it is a matter for Kyiv to define.

Ms Černochová described the invasion of Ukraine had been a wake-up call that revealed the weak state of national armed forces across the EU, and called for the European Commission to help open up cheap financing for the defence industry to allow it to modernise and increase production.

She expressed hope for a joint declaration to be reached between the EU and Nato by the end of the presidency in December, to focus on increasing co-operation, avoiding duplication, and military mobility, meaning easing military transport across EU borders.

“Nato is the key component of our collective defence and there is complementarity between Nato and EU. We will try to intensify the co-operation during our presidency,” Ms Černochová said.

With Finland and Sweden on course to join the military alliance, Ireland, Malta, Austria and Cyprus are the remaining non-Nato members in the EU.

Foreign minister Jan Lipavský pointed to parallels between the EU’s strategic compass defence strategy and the strategic concept of Nato agreed last month at a summit in Madrid.

“With such a significant overlap of member countries in the EU and Nato, and with clear political alignment of those two documents, it is obvious that we need to try for closer co-operation between the EU and Nato in the interests of all member states,” he said.

Mr Lipavský dismissed the idea that an EU joint declaration with Nato could pose a problem for member states that are outside the alliance.

“They are a member of the EU, and the EU has a common defence policy,” he said. “It’s not something which would affect them in a way that they wouldn’t agree, since they already agreed in the in the EU framework.”

Tensions between Prague and Moscow were heightened before the invasion, and have played out across the landscape of the capital, which is dotted with landmark sites of resistance to Soviet rule.

Since 2020, it has twice pointedly renamed areas close to the Russian embassy, unveiling “Boris Nemtsov Square” in honour of the assassinated critic of Russia’s Vladimir Putin, and “Ukrainian Heroes Street” in April.

The Czech government expelled much of Russia’s diplomatic presence last year, after it identified the involvement of Russian agents in a huge explosion of an arms depot in 2014 that killed two Czech workers. Ammunition intended for Ukraine, which at the time was in conflict with Russia following the annexation of Crimea, is believed to have been stored there.