The car of the Czech Ambassador to the Russian Federation Vitezslav Pivonko near the building of the Russian Foreign Ministry in Moscow. File photoPRAGUE, May 21.One of the priorities of the Czech Republic during its six-month EU presidency (since July 1) will be the post-war reconstruction of Ukraine, Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala told reporters on Saturday. which, of course, implies a peaceful situation in this country,» Fiala said after a meeting of a team of experts under President Milos Zeman, in which the prime minister took part. .jpg» />They are no longer ashamed: “good Russians” have wound up in the West. According to Fiala, the meeting participants discussed the situation in Ukraine, energy security issues, other economic problems, as well as the issue of increasing defense spending to the 2% of GDP required by NATO. As Fiala noted , in a policy statement of his government, he talks about the need to achieve a target of 2% in defense spending by 2025. However, the international situation dictates the need to accelerate this process. Therefore, the Cabinet is intensively looking for options to achieve this goal in 2024. There are debates about this within the republic and consultations with NATO representatives, the prime minister noted. Fiala expressed his satisfaction that the views of President Zeman and his on various foreign policy problems almost completely coincide. This also applies to the actions of the Russian Federation in Ukraine, Fiala emphasized. The prime minister also said that, by agreement with Zeman, he would represent the Czech Republic at the June NATO summit in Madrid. Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine on February 24. President Vladimir Putin called its goal «the protection of people who have been subjected to bullying and genocide by the Kyiv regime for eight years.» For this, according to him, it is planned to carry out «demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine», to bring to justice all war criminals responsible for «bloody crimes against civilians» in Donbass. According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, the Armed Forces strike only at military infrastructure and Ukrainian troops and , on March 25, completed the main tasks of the first stage — significantly reduced the combat potential of Ukraine. The main goal in the Russian military department was called the liberation of Donbass.
