The Russian Effect on the Czech Republic

Interview

Our country is part of NATO, we are a member of NATO, so we absolutely follow the NATO policy; the threat to our country is the same as the threat to NATO; it means Russia, it means terrorism, world terrorism - Major General Jaromír Alan, of the Ministry of Defense of the Czech Republic, told us. We asked him about his country’s moves to protect itself against pro-Russian propaganda, especially considering there have been diplomatic scandals, as there have been in Georgia, aimed at spreading malign influence.

“Thankfully, on our territory we have no Russian military activity; so [the hybrid warfare] is mostly limited to cyber activities and moves which aim to influence the opinion of our people,” he says. “Those psychological operations, or machinations, are perhaps the biggest threat from Russia today in the Czech Republic.”

Russia trades in anti-Western sentiment. What does it do in the Czech Republic to convince the population?

We have come a long way on the path of democracy, and Western democracy in particular, so I don't think that Russia is able to influence the opinion of our public towards the West, it is not possible; however, they want to influence the opinion of the population against itself, for example, saying that our political system is unstable, that some political party is lying, and so on; so those are the ways they want to influence people.

The Czech Republic is a vocal supporter for Georgia to become a NATO member. Why would you say Georgia needs to be there?

Georgia is making very good progress in the field of assisting NATO; it is a democratic country, it has improved its parliamentary democracy, its society is politically plural, it is one of the biggest contributors to NATO operations in Afghanistan- there are some 800 Georgians there now. We have 800 people there too, but we are twice larger than Georgia, so this is a really significant contribution. Georgia modernized its armed forces, has experience from operations, is able to create new military capabilities with new equipment, new technologies, and I hope that soon Georgia will indeed join NATO.

What do you think is the argument of those skeptical countries who expect trouble if Georgia is accepted in?

I don’t think there are such arguments; I think the main demand from those skeptics is that Georgia first needs to solve its territorial issues with Russia. Every country wanting to join NATO has to solve their own problems first, political problems, territorial problems. The same applies to Ukraine, too.

Georgians and Ukrainians want to join NATO to be safe from Russia, but if we were able to deal with Russia on equal terms, we would need to be a non-aligned country. What’s the solution to this dilemma?

It's not an easy question and there is no easy answer. In the Czech Republic, we wanted to be a member of the European Union and NATO. NATO membership came first and that for us was a really, really big thing because through this act of becoming a member of NATO, we proclaimed that we are a Western-oriented country, and this was very important for us and I absolutely believe that the same applies to Georgia and Ukraine.

By Vazha Tavberidze