Defence Minister Jana Černochová (ODS) visited five sites in Ukraine with war graves of soldiers from both World Wars from Czech lands. The last one was the memorial of the Battle of Zborov. She has repeatedly made it clear that it is necessary to put an end to Russian aggression.
- Your latest visit to the war memorials is different from the previous ones. What does their sacrifice mean to you and to all of us?
As Minister of Defence and before that as a Member of Parliament, I have visited Ukraine several times, but this trip is really a bit different, because we are visiting cities and memorial sites connected with our history, with the history of the soldiers who fought in the Austro-Hungarian army, the legionaries and the soldiers who fought in the Second World War. Probably the most famous in our country is the Battle of Zborov.
I think it is important for us not to forget these heroes, many of whom are not even buried in the Czech Republic or Slovakia. As a Minister, I feel it is my duty to remember these war victims, and we are also remembering them in Ukraine, which is now in its third year of a heroic struggle against the invaders from the Russian Federation.
- Do you sense what the people here experience every day?
We feel it at every turn. We had an alarm last night, too. Fortunately, it was nothing serious, but this is the third year that Ukrainians have been living in such stressful situations, and we have to bear that in mind. We do not have the right to be tired of this war, they have the right to be tired and exhausted. And they have the right to demand a wave of solidarity and help from the civilised democratic countries around them.
- In Černivce we saw a number of fresh graves, often without tombstones. How does it make you feel when you see their unfortunate relatives?
This completely unnecessary conflict, which was provoked by Russia in an unprecedented way, has caused me great sadness and anger in every part of Ukraine, but also great strength for me, as Defence Minister, not to let up even for a day in helping Ukraine.
When I meet with local government representatives, I always ask them what more our country can do for them. We learned from the representatives of Old Martyniv that they need to prepare for the winter. The only way they can prepare for it is to have enough back-up power in case Russia bombs the civilian population and civilian infrastructure again. It's a little bit of help, because it's not military material, but it's something that makes people's lives a little bit easier.
- But military assistance is still needed when Russia has the ability to send more cruise missiles and ballistic missiles. It's only a matter of time before another one of Russia's precision weapons hits a completely non-military target...
We experienced this recently in the form of an attack on a children's hospital, which strikes me as the height of cynicism and something that is not common in wartime conflicts and perhaps did not happen to this extent even when we as Czechoslovaks were experiencing the Second World War.
Russia's goal is to intimidate, exhaust and tire the civilian population. It is called a war of attrition so that as the war gets longer, the population puts more pressure on the politicians to end the war, even at the cost of some compromise.
Whoever I've talked to here, everyone wants peace as much as we do. But none of these people say that they want peace at the cost of losing a piece of their territory and that the sacrifices that are unfortunately being made here every day are... I don't want to say the word useless, but they have not received any absolution.
The war was instigated by Vladimir Putin and the people here found themselves having to fight virtually unarmed from day to day against overwhelming odds before the West started sending in arms. The Czech Republic was among the first countries to send them.
- And the aid continues?
Help continues. I am very happy that the President and the Prime Minister and I have said that if we can get more funding, we want to continue the ammunition initiative. We already have information on where ammunition is still available.
- The war graves commemorate people who fought for the existence or creation of Czechoslovakia, and it probably doesn't matter which front. How important is it to remember them for a sense of patriotism?
Let's not let the word patriotism be stolen from some people who go to the right extreme. Patriotism is the best thing that could have happened to us at different stages of our history. It is thanks to it that Czechoslovakia came into being and survived. We have survived two wars and the communist regime, and we are lucky to be able to mark 35 years of life in a free country on 17 November.
The Ukrainians were not so lucky and we must do everything we can to get them at least where the Czech Republic was after 1989.
I don't really like the division between the Eastern and Western fronts, because I know that after the Velvet Revolution it was very modern to remind us of the Western Front and the Westerners.
- It was a reaction to the situation before...
Yes, it was a logical reaction to the communist regime. On the other hand, anyone who gets to know a little better those who, for example, fell in the Battle of Sokolov or liberated Kiev, who have memorial plaques, war graves and in many cases their bodies here, will recognise that they were heroes too.
They fought on the eastern front, but they were not Bolsheviks, nor were they people who fought under the Red Army. They fought in independent Czechoslovak units. It should not be taken automatically that what was eastern was only associated with the bad, the Red. That was not and is not the case.
That is why I believe that in the Czech Republic we should consistently ensure that memorial and commemorative sites and legacies of people who contributed to the liberation of our country are not destroyed. I do not want to call that history into question.
I know that this is sensitive for a lot of people because Russia is the aggressor and we have cut off contact with people who are dedicated to war graves in the Russian Federation. But I have no information that they are destroying our graves and we cannot do the same in our country.
Pravo - Karlovarsko ● 29. 7. 2024 ● Author: Alex Švamberk
mocr.cz / gnews.cz-jav_07
English 
Czech