Zelensky in Prague at the closest ally of President Pavel. Fico accuses him of terrorism in Slovakia
Last week, news came of a secret visit to Prague Castle. The expectation was confirmed that one of the most famous statesmen of today, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, would visit Prague. President Petr Pavel is one of his closest allies despite speaking quite openly about the limits of the Ukrainian conflict as a clash between David and Goliath. In response to this visit, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico spoke up, the views on the current politics of our closest neighbor could not be more different.
Petr Pavel is one of the most closely watched personalities in Czech political life. The same is true for Volodymyr Zelensky on a global scale. Although both statesmen belong to representatives of very small and insignificant countries globally.
Since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, however, the prestige of the local president, who bravely did not leave the country and led unexpectedly tenacious resistance against the Russian superiority, has somewhat declined. From our domestic pond, we can recall the then prospective presidential candidate, businessman Karel Janeček, who bizarrely compared himself to this personality through skydiving on the wave of the top popularity of the Ukrainian president.
Petr Pavel as Zelenský's closest ally does not see victory in Ukraine
Now, however, Zelensky faces not only closed doors, but also diplomatic humiliation, which he experienced for example in the White House. However, he is not threatened with similar treatment at Prague Castle.
"Among Zelensky's international allies, Pavel has long been one of the strongest and most effective. In the first year of the Russian invasion, the United States fruitlessly searched the world for artillery shells needed by Ukraine to keep up the fight. Then Pavel, the leader of a country smaller than Idaho, found a way to get more than a million of these shells, which the Czechs quickly donated to Ukraine,"
Simon Schuster happened to write for the American newspaper Time a month ago.
The so-called Czech ammunition initiative enjoys extraordinary prestige among Ukrainian allies abroad and we cannot consider Petr Pavel a chatterbox in this regard. At the same time, however, Time points out that the Czech president does not "butter up" the Ukrainian leadership and recalls his analytical statements in which Pavel considers sovereign victory of Ukraine currently impossible and the loss of territory hardly avoidable.
Czech and Slovakia now only share a common past, currently very little
Zelenskyj may appreciate this straightforwardness without twists in Pavlov as well. At a time when American support for Ukraine is very fickle, the future of Ukraine, which Pavel himself points out, will not be without a scar, can depend on such alliances.
Although the Czech Republic is not the only ally of Ukrainians, just cross our eastern borders and we meet a completely different approach. Slovak Prime Minister Fico has been exchanging diplomatic jabs with Zelenskyj for a long time. It's no coincidence that while Prague hosts the Ukrainian president, Fico goes as the only representative of a European Union country to pay homage to the Russian army led by Vladimir Putin, which is consistently bombing Ukrainian schools, hospitals, children's playgrounds, and other civilian objects.
In order to enhance the whole contrast even more, in his comment Fico labeled Zelensky a terrorist, because he evasively commented on safety at this Russian parade. The closest partner of the Czech Republic with whom the country had a common state now stands on opposing sides of the international political barricade.
Sources: author's text, comment, seznamzpravy.cz, Time.com
