Poland/Slovakia/Czechia – As Russia’s war against Ukraine is now in its second month, several Central European countries are becoming increasingly involved in supporting their neighbour.
Eduard Heger shocked by the Bucha massacre
A few weeks after his Polish, Czech, and Slovenian counterparts had done so, Slovak Prime Minister Eduard Heger went on a visit to Ukraine last Friday together with the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyern. The visit was meant to mark their solidarity as Eduard Heger and Ursula von der Leyen accompanied Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to Bucha, a city northwest of Kiev in the suburbs of the Ukrainian capital, where several hundred bodies were discovered in the streets after Russian troops who had occupied it for several weeks had departed. These Russian troops are being accused of war crimes and even genocide, which the Russian authorities deny, speaking of a macabre staging by the Ukrainian secret services.
Shocked by what he saw in Bucha, the Slovak Prime Minister shared his impressions: “The journey from Kiev [to Bucha] gradually prepares you for what lies ahead. You see destroyed roads, houses, and cars. Some have been burned, others have been destroyed by bombs or gunfire. [And then, in Bucha]… mass graves and bodies in black bags. (…)
Not only women, but also [teenage girls] were raped and then had Nazi symbols burned onto their stomachs. I saw images of families whose children had been murdered, piled up, and burned. (…) What I saw, I will not forget for the rest of my life.
Czech Defence Minister wants US base in Czechia
Faced with this horror of war almost on her doorstep, on Saturday Czech Defence Minister Jana Černochová, who will be visiting the United States after Easter, proposed concluding an agreement similar to the one signed last February by neighbouring Slovakia with the United States: “I would like to address this topic at the bilateral meeting.
We can follow the same path as the agreement signed by Slovakia. (…) The Slovaks negotiated their agreement before the war in Ukraine, at a time when there were discussions about possible aggression.
She is proposing, among other things, the establishment of a U.S. military base in Czechia. Former Prime Minister Andrej Babiš has called the proposal unnecessary, however, and the Unites States itself seems to have been caught off-guard.
The Defence Cooperation Agreement provides a general framework for further cooperation between the U.S. and Czech militaries. This is a natural development after decades of cooperation between our countries”,
explained the deputy spokesman of the U.S. Embassy in the Czech Republic, Pravo Todd Jurkowski.
Alleged Polish delivery of a hundred tanks to Ukraine
Poland has been providing active support to Ukraine from the start, and there are now persistent rumours in the press that it may have delivered about a hundred T-72 tanks, just as the Czechs had done , as well as BM-21 Grad multiple rocket launchers. For its part, the Polish army has sent, respectively, some 300 and 200 pieces of this Soviet-made equipment to Ukraine. Such equipment is said to be very useful for the Ukrainian army, as it can immediately deploy and use it to defend its territory without any need for additional training.
