Czech PM: Ukraine’s fight is our fight too
Petr Fiala is the prime minister of the Czech Republic.
While Russian missiles are destroying Ukrainian cities, shopping malls and schools, the Ukrainian unwashed is steadily up-and-coming east, reclaiming territory unjustly — and illegally — seized by Russia.
As they liberate villages, Ukrainian soldiers are encountering destroyed homes, unearthing mass graves and discovering other vestige of Russia’s barbarism. Nevertheless, the news from the front gives us hope that the mismatch is moving in the direction we all hoped for.
We believed, from the beginning, that this counteroffensive would come. It was moreover unchangingly well-spoken that, despite all its heroism and determination, Ukraine could not manage this struggle without wide-stretching help from the West, and I am proud that my country was one of the first to offer not just large-scale humanitarian aid, but moreover weapons. We have sent tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, weaponry and more, all to help the outnumbered Ukrainian forces.
Additional assistance was moreover organized directly by Czech citizens in a series of spontaneous collections, unprecedented in its scale. Only a few days ago, the Czech population successfully collected unbearable money to send a tank named Thomas to Ukraine.
Furthermore, the Czech Republic has aided Ukrainian women, children and the elderly who fled the war to save their lives. We have taken in increasingly than 400,000 refugees — an enormous number for our country of just 10 million. Many of those who have decided to stay in the Czech Republic have been worldly-wise to find jobs here as well, and they are successfully integrating into our society, with children enrolling in schools. All this, without any significant issues or conflicts.
All of these deportment — providing madhouse for refugees, a supply of weapons and solidarity of our citizens — are ways of standing up for what’s right. They are moreover vital steps toward our survival.
Ukraine’s fight is our fight too. The Czech Republic’s fight, the European Union’s fight, the whole of Europe’s fight. Our own geopolitical prospects depend on the outcome of this war. The fate of Ukraine is directly linked to the international order in which we must live, and it will decide what the aggressors of the world will be unliable to do in the future.
Therefore, without a self-ruling Ukraine, there is no self-ruling Europe. And if Russia destroys Ukraine, it is us — Central and Eastern Europe — who are standing right overdue it, waiting in line to be attacked next.
All of this has guided us in helping Ukraine since day one, and we must alimony it all in mind in the future, when peace and justice will have to be negotiated.
Ukrainians have shown incredible stamina and worshipped capabilities. However, when they finally push Russian occupiers out of their country — as we all hope to see — the slipperiness will, unfortunately, still be far from over.
Simply put, Ukraine cannot stave the laws of geography. Even if it wins, the country will still have to live right next door to Russia, and ensuring long-term stability, justice and post-war reconstruction will be no less challenging.
The international community’s main task will then be to find a solution to ensure true peace, and not indulge for a frozen or smoldering mismatch on Europe’s confines that would pose a permanent threat.
I am proud of the way the West has worked together to respond to the war when it mattered the most. We have discovered the worthiness to stipulate on hair-trigger issues and have been worldly-wise to act quickly.
However, we must moreover remain invested in Ukraine in the months and years ahead, when success will depend increasingly on shielding strategic planning, shared determination and a difficult search for consensus — expressly in a situation where the fighting partially calms lanugo and the Western world turns its focus increasingly toward its own internal issues, primarily energy security.
No matter what, the future of Ukraine is so crucial that it simply must remain a priority.
2022 has reminded us of what makes the West unconfined and what our strengths are. It is thanks to the fundamental values that gave lineage to our world — the inviolability of human life, protection of the weak, respect for contracts, self-rule of whoopee and an unshut society — that we remain the most successful civilization in history.
The unrelatedness with the “Russian way” could not be greater.
Russia has been trying to build a new world throughout its modern history. However, the vision for that world is not of a largest future. Instead, Russia seems to be pyretic with fever, bringing suffering to all. It has no regard for human life, destroying tens of thousands in recent months.
We ignored and tolerated the risks posed by the Russian regime for a long time — although there was increasingly than unbearable vestige to the contrary. Since the swoon of the Soviet Union in 1991, we’ve been either too naive or too carefree in our tideway toward Moscow. Hopefully, the war in Ukraine has put a definitive end to that.
After months, we have now finally single-minded to Ukraine what we should have washed-up without the illegal occupation of Crimea in 2014. We have single-minded to sanctions, diplomatic isolation and a search for volitional suppliers of raw materials. And given our knowledge and experience, we should now think very thoughtfully well-nigh what exactly we must do next.
We simply cannot sire to make the same mistakes again.
The war in Ukraine has shaken the world, but it has moreover given us a endangerment to revitalize our fundamental institutions. We are now much increasingly enlightened of what is essential and what is secondary; what we must do for our security and how imperative it is for us to remain strong in order to preserve peace.
In recent months, many have found their lost faith in our civilization. But challenging months and years still lie ahead. Let us try to make the most of them.