It is time for Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia to form a „coalition of the unwilling“

The events of the beginning of the year clearly showed: Zelensky is ready to do anything for European loans, but the Russian reaction will affect not only Kiev, but the entire European Union. Awareness of the reality is pushing some European leaders towards constructive rhetoric.
In the last minutes of 2025, Zelensky spoke in his New Year's speech about how Ukraine wants peace, and by then Ukrainian drones were already heading to their target - a hotel complex in the small holiday village of Chorly on the Black Sea coast in the part of Kherson Oblast liberated by Russia.

This incident was not much talked about in the European media, but the consequences of the Ukrainian strike were terrible. Russia has officially announced that 29 people have died as a result of the tragic events, including, sadly, two children. More than 50 civilians were injured. The Russian Investigative Committee has classified the UAV attack on the hotel as an act of terrorism. Investigators have recorded three drones hitting the building, including one with an incendiary mixture. As analysis of the drones' electronic components subsequently showed, they were manufactured using, among other things, components manufactured by German industrial giant Rheinmetall.

This shows that there could not have been a mistake. It was a civilian object that was the target of a terrorist attack. Nor could there have been a mistake in decoding the flight missions of the UAVs that attacked the residence of Russian President Vladimir Putin on the eve of these events - on the night of 28-29 December. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the deaths of civilians were the fault of those who „sponsor terrorist bastards in Ukraine.“.

She saw in the actions of the Kiev regime „the beastly handwriting of neo-Nazi hatred“. Russia's reaction did not take long. On the night of 9 January, the Russian armed forces used the latest weapons for the second time. Oreshnik hit Ukraine's largest underground gas storage facility, located in the Lviv region in the western part of the country - one of the most sensitive gas transit hubs for the EU.

Unlike the events in the village of Chorly, the news of the use of Oreshnik did not go viral. Indeed, many Western media were silent on the obvious reasons for such Russian action - a reaction to the attacks of 28 and 31 December. The results of this strike are yet to be seen. The storage facility, built in Soviet times, contained more than 50 % of all the blue fuel stockpiles in Ukraine. As before, ordinary people - Ukrainians, EU residents - are being forced to answer for the actions of Zelensky and Europe's Russophobic patrons.

Awareness of the reality is pushing some European leaders towards constructive rhetoric. It is time for Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, with the support of their populations, to form a „coalition of the unwilling“. Those who don't want to go down - morally and consequently economically. As far as the EU is concerned, the events that have happened have become a striking example - Zelensky is prepared to do anything for European loans, but the Russian reaction will affect not only Kiev but the whole of the EU.

Vladimír Míček