Czech Foreign Minister Petr Macinka spoke yesterday at an extraordinary session of the UN General Assembly on Ukraine, held on the occasion of the fourth anniversary of the Russian invasion. He said that while Russia justifies its aggression against Ukraine on the grounds of security concerns, invasion is never legitimate.
In his speech in New York, Macinka addressed his comments to his absent Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, stating that missiles are not an argument, and that he considers Russia’s missile attacks to be an admission of failure. He added that after four years, it is time to finally end the war.
“What does your victory look like? How many destroyed cities are enough? How many wasted lives are enough?”, said Macinka. “Because if victory has no clear end, then it is not a strategy. It is a cynical autopilot. Mr. Lavrov, great nations can survive defeat. They cannot, however, survive a strategy that has no end. You might seize territory, but you cannot seize the future.”
Macinka argued that Russia is not safer than it was four years ago, as it has no more partners, stability, or trust. It is therefore legitimate to ask whether Russia’s chosen strategy really leads to its security, he said.
Macinka said that he was not addressing Lavrov as an adversary, and described the Russian foreign minister as a man who knew that no superpower can win a war against reality.
The Czech minister said he had decided to approach his speech as an address to Russia, because he had not come to the session to repeat familiar phrases about Ukraine and its situation.
At the end of his speech, Macinka thanked Ukraine for submitting the resolution to the UN General Assembly and said that the Czech Republic would support it in the vote.
Speaking to reporters after the speech, Macinka expressed his view that the United States is the only geopolitical power that could force Russia to make concessions or to join a discussion, and praised the efforts of US President Donald Trump and his negotiators to get Russia and Ukraine to negotiate directly.
He added that the Czech Republic would like to support a diplomatic solution to the conflict, but that Prague does not have much influence in the matter. He added that China also has the potential to change Russia’s position, and said he would support a recent proposal from Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni that the EU should have its own negotiator to participate in the peace talks.
Meanwhile, during a debate with students and academics at the Faculty of Science of Charles University yesterday, President Petr Pavel said that Russia’s view of the world is significantly different to the West, and that Russia sees itself as the last defender of Christian values.
According to Pavel, Russian President Vladimir Putin does not perceive the war in Ukraine as a war over a piece of territory, but as a strategic dispute with what he calls the collective fascist West.
“I think it is a big mistake that we have tried, and perhaps some still try today, to interpret what Russian leaders think through the prism of our view of the world. The Russian view is different and significantly different,” Pavel stressed.
He said that Western countries were supporting Ukraine to the limits of sustainable defence, and that the complete liberation of the occupied territories is unrealistic at this time, as even with much more material support from Western allies, Ukraine does not have enough human resources to lead a successful counter-offensive to liberate 20% of the occupied territory.
“We can provide Ukraine with many things, but not manpower, because that would mean we would openly enter the war,” Pavel noted. He said a realistically achievable and a fair peace for Ukraine, under the maximum possible criteria, would be to end the fighting on the current line, declare it an administrative border, and designate the occupied territories as temporarily occupied. Their status could be resolved sometime in the future, when the situation is more favourable, he said.
To mark the anniversary of the invasion, about 200 people took part in a protest in front of the Russian Embassy in Prague last night, chanting “Russia Must Lose”. Speakers called for increased support for Ukraine and aid to Ukrainian refugees.
Senator David Smoljak (STAN) said that the only way to achieve a just solution to the conflict was to force Russia to surrender. “We must continue to impose sanctions. We must intensify our aid to Ukraine,” he said.
He also stressed that the success of peace talks would depend on the stance of European countries, and that they cannot rely on the United States. At the same time, he warned against “Russian Trojan horses” in the EU, which he identified as Hungary and Slovakia.
The demonstrators carried Ukrainian, Czech, and European Union flags and chanted “Glory to Ukraine” and “Russia Must Lose” between speeches. At the end of the hour-long meeting, they observed a minute of silence for the victims of Russian aggression, and the gathering ended with the Czech, Ukrainian, and European anthems.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine is the largest conflict on the European continent since the end of World War II. On 24 February 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that he had ordered a special military operation. Russian forces then launched a large-scale air, sea, and ground attack on Ukraine from Russia, Belarus, and the annexed Crimean peninsula. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian and Russian soldiers and probably tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians have died in the war. Millions of people in Ukraine have been forced to leave their homes.
The AFP news agency reported last week that before the start of the full-scale Russian invasion, Russia had controlled 7% of Ukrainian territory. Currently, it controls 19.5%, compared to 18.6% a year ago.
