Opinion: Russian Narratives, Oligarchic Interests, and Czech Attitudes Towards Ukraine
Adam Sybera and Vojtěch Boháč unpack Andrej Babiš’s comeback, fossil tycoon proxies, and the anti-climate backlash
1. The Return of Andrej Babiš and Russian Narratives in Czech Politics
IESS:
The European Union is currently experiencing a period of turbulence. Hungary has a new prime minister, and there have been changes across the region. What about Andrej Babiš? How has the situation in the Czech Republic changed? What do people think, and how are Russian narratives entering Czech public debate and the Czech media environment?
Adam Sybera:
I would not say that Russian narratives have entered the Czech Republic only now. This has been going on since at least 2014, if not earlier.
What has changed is the return of an even more populist Andrej Babiš, who was already a populist before. The victory of Petr Fiala’s government was basically a fluke. I do not think it would have been repeated under other circumstances. It was a lucky victory, followed by four years in government, and now Andrej Babiš has returned with a new wave of populism.
To secure that return, he had to intensify his populism. Russian propaganda and disinformation narratives had already been active since 2014. Because Babiš’s political strategy is focused on whatever can help him win an election, he chose to use some of these themes.
We already saw this during his unsuccessful presidential campaign against Petr Pavel. He presented himself as the candidate of peace, which already resonated to some extent with a Russian narrative.
He then needed to secure a governing coalition, which required him to align himself with forces that were more or less openly pro-Russian.
Vojtěch Boháč:
I would say that Babiš is extremely pragmatic. He is definitely not ideologically pro-Russian.
Adam Sybera:
He does not have an ideology.
Vojtěch Boháč:
What I always say is that he flows with the wind. He does not determine the overall direction of the Czech political scene, but he can navigate it very precisely.
The environment is being shaped by pro-Russian groups, his coalition partners, and other actors. He extracts as much political benefit from that environment as he can.
In the Czech Republic, particularly among his electorate, there is a strong feeling that the country should not align itself too closely either with the United States or with Russia.
Even among people who vote for more explicitly pro-Russian parties, pro-Russian sentiment in the Czech Republic is very small compared with Slovakia. If it is clearly demonstrated that somebody is working with Russian money or in Russia’s interests, people will abandon that person. Such an association does not strengthen a political party.
People will say: “Okay, we do not like that.”
At the same time, there is a certain cynicism. People see both the United States and Russia as powerful states pursuing their own interests. From their perspective, focusing only on Russian interests means ignoring what the United States is doing. This creates a cynical attitude towards both sides.
Compared with Poland, for example, Czech people often do not have a strong geopolitical orientation. The attitude is closer to: “Let us be ourselves.”
There is still a certain historical resentment connected with 1939 and the belief that nobody helped us in the past. We will therefore live like “hobbits” on our own, avoid involvement in the affairs of the wider world, and distance ourselves from them as much as possible.
At the same time, this means that people are often less sensitive to Russian narratives because they do not perceive them as Russian narratives. They see them as an alternative agenda challenging the mainstream, which they often associate with the West, the United States, Britain, and similar actors.
Adam Sybera:
To expand on that, if you compare the Czech Republic with Slovakia or Hungary, you do not have anyone in the current Czech government who resembles someone like Péter Szijjártó, who would travel to Moscow, or Robert Fico.
There is a form of aggressive national populism, but its representatives do not openly describe themselves as pro-Russian. ANO and Babiš certainly do not. SPD flirts with it. Motoristé also say that they are not pro-Russian.
However, they unite around similar narratives, including opposition to immigration and the protection of traditional values.
Vojtěch Boháč:
Russia is very good at identifying such topics and promoting them.
It uses an entire environment of alternative media, which is often quite crazy. People understand that much of it is crazy, but these narratives still make their way into the broader public understanding of politics and media.
People in the Czech Republic and other countries also quickly forget where particular narratives originally came from.
Adam Sybera:
Russia works with the narratives that are already present.
COVID is a good example. Many of these groups united around COVID-related disinformation. It was not necessarily the result of an established political preference. It was the result of an information campaign.
I do not think there are credible data that conclusively prove this. However, if you examine Facebook groups and electoral groups, the people who rallied around claims such as “COVID is a hoax” were often the same groups that were susceptible to Russian disinformation.
2. Alternative Media and the Injection of Russian Narratives
Vojtěch Boháč:
Russia has its own media environment in the Czech Republic, and it is very effective at injecting particular topics into the public debate. We conducted extensive research on this last year.
There are media associated with former president Václav Klaus, representing a more right-wing audience. There are also media connected with Miloš Zeman, representing a more left-wing audience, as well as more esoteric platforms.
These actors are good at injecting their topics into different social groups. Eventually, people no longer know where the topic originated, but it is already present in the information environment.
Adam Sybera:
It becomes part of the information space.
Another family of narratives concerns opposition to climate policies and climate change. This was one of the core ideas behind the rise of Motoristé sobě, the third governing party that essentially made the Babiš government possible.
Václav Klaus is considered a kind of political godfather of that party — not a godfather in the Mafia sense.
Vojtěch Boháč:
When discussing the media environment, we have to distinguish between different levels.
First, there are disinformation media that are often closely connected to Russia or even financed by it. They remain at the edge of the public debate, but they are good at injecting particular narratives into it.
Then there are powerful public-relations projects. This is also what happened in Slovakia. These projects are often neither financed by Russia nor directly connected to it.
They are very effective at weakening traditional media and avoiding any critical approach to those in power. They dismantle the relationship between traditional media and governmental power.
This happened in Slovakia, and it is now happening in the Czech Republic as well. Governing parties have realised that they can use non-critical media to tell sympathetic stories about how difficult it is to govern and how everybody is attacking them.
The presenters respond by saying: “Yes, it must be so difficult for you. Tell me more.”
The people operating these projects can make very good money by being friendly towards those in power.
For the government, it is useful to have a channel through which it can address a large audience without being criticised. These outlets can sometimes appear sympathetic towards Russia, but I would not necessarily say that they are connected to Russia.
They provide an alternative to critical media.
Critical media have a major problem in the Czech Republic: many of the outlets with the largest audiences are owned by oligarchs. These oligarchs are not necessarily pro-Russian, but they do not want to oppose the government.
Adam Sybera:
Many of them also make money from fossil fuels. They are fossil-fuel oligarchs.
Vojtěch Boháč:
It is not that they are pro-Russian. Their interests simply coincide with Russian interests.
Consider the case of Křetínský, one of the wealthiest people in the Czech Republic. He makes money from gas transmission and owns, for example, Slovak gas pipelines.
I would not say that Křetínský is pro-Russian. He is much more established in France.
Adam Sybera:
He is pro-Křetínský. He supports whatever makes money for Křetínský.
The problem is that the environment is shaped by Russian interests, and Russia is very good at offering benefits to Czech oligarchs.
As a result, they can effectively become proxy forces for Russia without intending to do so, simply because the arrangement makes financial sense.
3. Does Russia Need to Support Both Sides in the Czech Republic?
IESS:
We know what Russia did during the Black Lives Matter protests in the United States: it supported both sides in order to encourage them to attack each other.
We now have a situation in the Czech Republic involving Petr Pavel, the NATO summit in Ankara, and Andrej Babiš. Hypothetically, could Russia support both Pavel’s and Babiš’s social-media environments?
Adam Sybera:
Russia’s current priority in the Czech Republic is to keep together the section of society that it has already mobilised, because that broader political camp already has a majority.
If you combine the electoral support for ANO with the other relevant parties, you have to remember that ANO voters are not necessarily pro-Russian. Nevertheless, the governing party can, to some extent, enable pro-Russian forces in the Czech Republic.
Again, this is not because of ideology. It is because the situation benefits Andrej Babiš, and the party is essentially Andrej Babiš.
The narratives enter primarily through SPD and Tomio Okamura. That represents radical national populism. Motoristé represent radical anti-Europeanism.
Vojtěch Boháč:
They are also connected to Václav Klaus, who is connected with Russia.
Adam Sybera:
Exactly. That is where the interests meet.
I do not think Andrej Babiš is the driving force behind this. The driving force is Babiš’s personal interest in remaining in government, obtaining immunity, and securing personal benefits.
IESS:
In some respects, this resembles Fico and the situation involving the prosecutor’s office.
Vojtěch Boháč:
At the same time, the situation is complex because there are many financial interests that would like to normalise relations with Russia, as well as with China.
They do not need Russia to pay them. They are willing to pay for this normalisation themselves.
There are certainly groups directly organised by Russia, but I would say they are much weaker than the domestic groups that have a financial interest in normalising relations with Russia.
We certainly have Russian agents, but we also have many domestic actors who support this agenda.
For example, there is New Media House, run by Marek Španěl, who comes from the gaming industry. He has a growing media house that is quite pro-Russian.
I describe him as part of the “second generation of disinformation”: someone who became suspicious of pro-Western narratives and was then exposed to pro-Russian narratives.
He already had a great deal of money and did not need support from Russia because he owns Bohemia Interactive, a large gaming studio.
I am fairly certain that he is not connected with Russia. Nevertheless, he promotes Russian interests because he believes ideas such as “Europe is broken” are attractive or correct.
Adam Sybera:
To return to your question about Russia’s current interest in the Czech Republic, its objective is no longer necessarily to incite two sides against one another. It is to keep one side stronger than the other.
Russia does not need to manufacture an artificial national conflict in the Czech Republic at the moment.
It can test particular local issues, as happened with the Sudeten Germans, but that issue was primarily promoted by one party. Nobody else really cared about it. There was a great deal of attention around it, but it was not central to Czech politics.
The more important objective is to keep the forces opposing Andrej Babiš’s government weak enough that they cannot effectively challenge it.
4. SPD, the Arms Industry, and Competing Financial Interests
Vojtěch Boháč:
SPD is a very interesting example. It is currently the most pro-Russian party in parliament and is part of the government.
At the same time, there are many indications that it received campaign support from Michal Strnad, who makes money from supporting Ukraine.
The current minister of defence is therefore Strnad’s person rather than SPD’s person. This caused a major internal problem within the party.
The party functions as a kind of business project: whoever pays more receives more. If the person paying is an arms-industry figure, then “fuck Russia.”
Adam Sybera:
That is mostly how it works.
The Czech Republic has a significant military and arms lobby, both in connection with Ukraine and the domestic economy. At the moment, however, we are not part of the coalition seeking to develop anti-missile defence across the European Union.
Other countries are also not part of it, but logically, one might expect the Czech defence lobby to pressure the government to participate. Andrej Babiš essentially refused.
This raises a series of other questions.
My current personal theory — and this is simply how I am thinking about it today — is that Andrej Babiš does not want other oligarchs to grow more powerful than him.
He may therefore be undermining the national interest to maintain his internal oligarchic chess game. He is effectively taking away their queen.
5. Ukraine, Munich, and the Sudeten German Analogy
IESS:
One Ukrainian narrative used in the Czech Republic is that if Ukraine loses the war, the result will resemble the Sudeten crisis: Putin, like Hitler, will simply consume this territory, after which a larger war will begin in Europe.
What do Czech people think about the possibility of Ukraine losing? How do they view a possible peace settlement for Ukraine?
Adam Sybera:
Generally, the Czech population supports Ukraine, although attitudes differ depending on the specific issue.
The analogy you described is also frequently used in the Czech Republic by the pro-Ukrainian side. The argument is that if Czechs do not help Ukraine now, they are effectively forgetting their own history, because something similar happened to Czechoslovakia in Munich.
The issue introduced by Tomio Okamura and the SPD does not resonate with the majority of the population. However, they do not need majority support for it.
Vojtěch Boháč:
They do not need it. They are effective at blocking initiatives.
Okamura received approximately seven per cent in the elections, but SPD is very efficient at blocking measures that would support Ukraine. Babiš received approximately 32 per cent, but he can be constrained very effectively by these forces.
Foreign affairs are not the central issue of Czech domestic politics. This is especially true for the ANO electorate, which often thinks: “We are Czechs, and we do not care about others.”
Czech identity is much more open in this respect.
Adam Sybera:
The question of Czech participation in violence against the Sudeten Germans, or the role of Sudeten Germans in enabling parts of Hitler’s agenda in 1938, is a much more closed historical topic for Czechs than Polish-Ukrainian relations and the Second World War are for Poles and Ukrainians.
There may be a very small percentage of people who still become agitated about the Sudeten German issue. However, if you ask an average Czech person on the street what they think about the Sudeten Germans, they will probably be confused by the question.
Vojtěch Boháč:
There was nevertheless a very interesting recent case involving a Landsmannschaft meeting in Brno.
Opinion polls clearly showed that 85 per cent of people did not care about it at all.
In the media, however, the story became enormous because hardcore pro-Russian forces, including SPD, promoted it and turned it into a political issue.
Nobody was particularly interested at first, but all the media began discussing it. For approximately two weeks, it became the central subject of Czech public debate. These actors were extremely effective at elevating it.
Adam Sybera:
For all we know, this could have been part of an information campaign designed to test how a particular section of the public would react. It definitely functioned that way.
Vojtěch Boháč:
This formed part of our analysis.
CZ24 News is the largest hardcore disinformation website in this environment. We conducted investigative work into its financing.
We discovered a structure running from the Seychelles through Britain and Slovakia to the Czech Republic. The people who head or enable the website travel to Russia quite frequently.
Adam Sybera:
It is nevertheless safe to say that the Russian attempt to activate historical grievances within the Czech Republic did not resonate with the public as strongly as similar attempts have in Poland or Slovakia.
Vojtěch Boháč:
The operation was fully developed around this subject, which can be sensitive.
The interested group was very small and marginal, but its members were extremely vocal. Most people did not care.
Websites closely connected with Russia, together with people around them, including certain pro-Russian NGOs, turned it into a major issue.
We initially wondered whether the objective was simply to test the effectiveness of their information operations.
The same thing is now happening with wind-generated electricity. This is taking place not only in the Czech Republic, but also in Poland, Bulgaria, and Romania.
They are testing how effective they can be in conducting information operations, and they are doing quite well.
6. Climate Disinformation and Fossil-Fuel Interests
Adam Sybera:
Russian propaganda concerning climate issues is much more effective in the Czech Republic than attempts to revive historical grievances.
It is extremely strong. This includes anti-climate narratives, claims that climate change does not exist, and arguments that the country needs Russian fossil fuels.
Vojtěch Boháč:
That is very powerful.
One reason is that Czech oligarchs such as Tykáč or Křetínský are fossil-fuel oligarchs whose interests strongly coincide with Russian interests.
If Russia supports them through its information channels, they are very happy to benefit from it. The merger of these interests creates a genuinely powerful force.
There is now a major campaign against wind-generated electricity. The domestic actors’ interests meet Russian interests, and together they become powerful enough to change the political agenda.
IESS:
Would it be accurate to say that in Slovakia some people support Russia either because they are foolish or because they receive Russian money, whereas in the Czech Republic these narratives are primarily promoted because they coincide with financial interests?
Vojtěch Boháč:
They are most effective when the interests coincide.
In Slovakia, Russian narratives can be effective even when they do not coincide with the interests of major financial groups. In the Czech Republic, they are usually effective when there is such a coincidence.
Adam Sybera:
Even parties such as SPD and Motoristé, which promote the most openly pro-Russian narratives, do so strategically.
SPD is not always entirely explicit, but these parties calculate that the narratives will appeal to a particular audience.
Ideology is certainly involved, but this is not the same as having figures such as Ľuboš Blaha or Andrej Danko in Slovakia openly praising Russia, or Szijjártó or Fico meeting with Russian representatives.
The Czech situation has not gone that far.
7. Inflation, the Cost of Living, and Support for Ukraine
IESS:
What about the price of bread? It is a major subject in Slovakia, where people constantly complain that bread prices are rising.
Do ordinary people understand that oligarchic groups promote Russian narratives for financial reasons and that supporting these narratives can destabilise the Czech economy?
Adam Sybera:
In the Czech Republic, we have butter. We complain about the price of butter.
I do not think the message is primarily about economic destabilisation. It is about creating the impression that somebody is coming to take something away from you.
The narrative tells people: this is why you do not have enough money; this is why you cannot pay your rent on time.
It shifts attention away from the real economic situation, including the unequal distribution of the market and other structural issues.
Instead, people are told that butter, bread, Russian gas, or some external actor is the reason for their problems.
Vojtěch Boháč:
There was a major narrative aimed at separating the war in Ukraine from Czech society while simultaneously connecting it to inflation.
The argument worked like this: “There is a war in Ukraine. We do not care about it because it is a dispute between Ukraine and Russia, but it affects our prices.”
During the period of high inflation, this narrative was used very effectively: “We do not want the war to affect us. Therefore, we do not want to support Ukraine. Let them resolve it themselves, and do not involve us.”
I think this worked quite well among the Babiš electorate.
On one side was the Munich and 1939 narrative, according to which failing to help Ukraine would allow the war to spread.
The opposing argument was: “We will not help them because helping them affects us now.”
This worked well during the inflationary period. Inflation is no longer as high, so the argument is less effective.
The current attitude is closer to: “Whether we help them or not, we do not care unless it affects us financially.”
Adam Sybera:
This leads into another family of Russian narratives: “We cannot help Ukraine because we do not have enough resources ourselves.”
That is not true. The Czech Republic actually makes a great deal of money from helping Ukraine.
Returning to oligarchic interests, at the beginning of the full-scale invasion — the exact date would need to be checked — Tykáč, who had previously been fairly quiet in the media, began speaking publicly.
He now owns media and has entered the media business.
He argued that if the Czech Republic lost access to Russian gas, the Velvet Revolution would look like child’s play compared with what would follow.
Several years later, we can see that this did not happen.
In retrospect, however, it is clear that he was experimenting with a narrative and selecting an audience. I would not necessarily say that he was choosing a geopolitical side, but he was choosing the audience he wanted to address.
8. “Velký vlastenecký výlet” and the Limits of Propaganda
IESS:
What has happened to the Czech media environment?
We remember the film Velký vlastenecký výlet, and I can now see the controversy surrounding Czech media. How did the Czech Republic move from the film to the current media scandal?
Vojtěch Boháč:
The three people in the film were simply jerks. Even for some pro-Russian viewers, their behaviour was too much.
The reaction was: “Wow, this is interesting.” But now nobody talks about it.
Adam Sybera:
Velký vlastenecký výlet should perhaps be understood less as a broad social phenomenon and more as a successful film.
It was successful in terms of the attention it attracted. However, I would not say that it was as relevant to broader public opinion as one might assume.
IESS:
Can this social experiment demonstrate that once a person chooses to believe this side, it is impossible to bring them back?
Vojtěch Boháč:
I would not say that.
The people in the film came from a very marginal group within Czech politics. That is one reason the film did not become such a major social issue.
When you watch it, your reaction is: “Okay, these are three jerks.” It does not tell you very much about the Czech population as a whole.
It produced an interesting debate for a short period.
Adam Sybera:
The film demonstrated that some people can become completely lost in propaganda. It is a tragic story, and that is the film’s value.
However, it is not representative of Czech society.
IESS:
So it is a tragedy for those individuals rather than a tragedy for society.
Adam Sybera:
It is an interesting documentary about people who are completely lost in the rabbit holes of Russian propaganda.
In the Czech Republic, Russian propaganda can have this effect on a minority of people. It can produce similar results in other societies as well.
However, the three people in Velký vlastenecký výlet are not representative of Czech society.
Vojtěch Boháč:
I think people like this may actually discourage others from supporting Russia.
Most Czech people have a home, a garden, and a reasonably decent life. When they see these individuals, they may think: “If this is what supporting Russia looks like, I do not like it very much.”
Adam Sybera:
The feedback I received was especially strong regarding the scenes filmed in Izium.
When some of the film’s protagonists claimed that everything they saw was fake, the public reaction was: “What the fuck?”
People were shocked that someone could be under such a deep level of propaganda influence that they were capable of saying this.
I also attended part of the filming, and people behaved differently in front of cameras.
Even in a documentary, you know that you are being filmed. A kind of tribal effect developed among the protagonists: they knew that people were watching them, so they defended their position even more strongly.
9. Is Russian Influence Really the Main Problem?
Vojtěch Boháč:
In the end, I would not say that Russian influence operations are extremely strong in the Czech Republic.
The situation is driven much more by domestic interests that align with Russian interests.
Ultimately, we do most of this shit to ourselves. We do not need Russia or the Russian fascist government to do very much.
Adam Sybera:
Russia is happy to participate, but we do most of the work.
Vojtěch Boháč:
I would assign Russia approximately 20 per cent of the responsibility and domestic actors 80 per cent.
People more or less understand what is happening. There is a war. Ukraine was attacked by Russia. People know this.
They simply do not want to be affected by it. They want Czech businesses to make money.
Even if a Czech company is not directly making money in Russia, people may still accept business arrangements that benefit them.
The logic is: “We are a small country. Historically, nobody helped us. If the United States and Russia want to have a major confrontation, they can do it, but they should not drag us into it.”
Adam Sybera:
The main conclusion is that, because of a particular historical development, local oligarchic interests have become aligned with Russian economic or foreign-policy interests.
Vojtěch Boháč:
I once interviewed a man who acted as a kind of intermediary between the Russian government and Křetínský.
I told him: “I do not think what you are doing is good.”
He responded: “Do you know what entropy is?”
I asked what he meant.
He explained that if cheap gas and high energy demand exist on the same continent, they will inevitably find a way to connect.
He said: “I am simply someone who helps this happen. If I do not help, it will happen anyway.”
This reflects a particular kind of cynicism.
I told him that this was exactly why I criticised people like him, because I did not believe the activity was morally acceptable.
He responded: “Morality is just entropy.”
He treated it almost like a law of physics.
This is closer to how many people think about the issue. The Czech Republic needs cheap energy, so that energy will somehow flow.
A Czech company may produce CNC machines that Russia needs. The machines might travel through Turkey, Georgia, or China, but eventually they will reach Russia.
There is also profound mistrust of institutions in the Czech Republic.
People think: “We are too small to change anything. By refusing to use the opportunities available to us, we are only shooting ourselves in the foot.”
This is the general attitude among many people described as pro-Russian. They are not necessarily pro-Russian. They are cynical and believe the Czech Republic is too small to change anything.
The Czech Republic is much more selfish than it is pro-Russian.
You can see this clearly in the media. The message is not: “We must love Russia.” It is: “Let us be selfish.”
Adam Sybera:
There are, of course, genuinely pro-Russian forces.
However, the broader mosaic is based on the idea that we should care only about ourselves and about what benefits the people controlling financial resources in the Czech Republic.
That is a stronger political ideology than openly waving the Russian flag.
10. Oligarchs, Independent Media, and the Czech-Slovak Difference
Vojtěch Boháč:
Another important difference between the Czech Republic and Slovakia is that the Czech Republic has approximately eight to ten oligarchs — or, more precisely, wealthy businesspeople — who support pro-Western forces and pro-Western media.
After Babiš bought the largest media house in the Czech Republic in 2013 and its quality deteriorated, these wealthy businesspeople financed numerous small independent media projects.
This is not an ideal model of independence. Nevertheless, these outlets preserved continuity in investigative journalism and related fields.
In Slovakia, there is essentially one financial group or asset company financing these activities.
In the Czech Republic, eight to ten financial groups are doing so.
I dislike saying this because I do not like oligarchs. However, in practice, this diversity has made a real difference.
As new business models for independent media emerge, there is already an existing tradition and continuity. Independent media have therefore begun to reappear.
If Babiš, SPD, or Motoristé want to dismantle independent or public-service media, they are acting primarily in their own interests.
Those interests coincide with Russian interests, but the motivation is first about themselves, not Russia.
Adam Sybera:
If we examine the oligarchic structures of the Czech Republic and Slovakia more deeply, the Czech oligarchy — if we continue using that term — is financially much more invested in the West than the Slovak oligarchy.
That ultimately affects its political orientation.
Oligarchs also divide economic sectors among themselves. One controls media, another controls gas, and Slovakia is a much smaller country.
The people who happen to control the media sector in Slovakia also happen to have interests that are more aligned with the East than with the West.
This creates a different environment.
After ten or fifteen years, everybody understands what propaganda and intensive media bombardment can do.
I do not think Czechs and Slovaks are fundamentally very different at heart. However, their environments developed in two different directions after 1990.
Is there anything we have forgotten?
Vojtěch Boháč:
Yes. We have a huge problem with oligarchy.
Adam Sybera:
That is the key conclusion.
With the possible exception of Poland, oligarchy is the number-one problem across much of the Visegrad Four.
Poland does not exactly reflect the rest of the V4 and has its own specific differences. I am not an expert on Poland.
However, in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, the oligarchy problem is real and is more subversive to these countries than Russian influence itself.
That it ultimately benefits Russian influence is one thing. But that does not mean it was originally created by Russian influence.
11. Economic Dependence on Russia and the Post-Soviet Market
Vojtěch Boháč:
Politics is also about political parties occupying spaces that remain available.
The Czech Republic has relatively strong pro-Western political parties, businesses, and media. Therefore, other actors will naturally occupy the remaining political space.
The issue is connected with the broader landscape of the country: which interests operate in the media, business, and politics.
It would help to sever financial ties with Russia, but I do not know whether that is entirely possible.
The Czech Republic is still a Central European country. Much of its engineering and machinery industry was heavily dependent on exports to Russia.
The wider global market was too advanced for some of these companies, while their products remained competitive in the post-Soviet market.
We recently published stories about machinery companies exporting to Russia. If they lose access to the Russian market, they can collapse.
This can mean dismissing approximately 5,000 employees in a small city, which is a major issue in the Czech Republic.
IESS:
Something similar is currently happening with Volkswagen in Slovakia. The company is repeatedly cutting jobs. I think this could become a major problem in Slovakia over the next six months because Volkswagen does not want to continue working with Slovakia.
Vojtěch Boháč:
Volkswagen is also cutting approximately half of its operations in Germany. It is a crazy story.
IESS:
The industry is being dismantled. I think this is connected with Chinese electric cars.
Vojtěch Boháč:
Absolutely.
Russia and China were among the largest export markets. This year, we can see that this period is over. The old model no longer works, and we have not adapted to the new reality.
Consider Alta, a company from Brno that made a great deal of money by exporting engineering solutions to Russia, including solutions for arms manufacturers.
The company was also a strong supporter of Zeman.
This creates an important dilemma: was Zeman pro-Russian, or was he pro-Czech business that exported to Russia?
That is a crucial question.
Adam Sybera:
This brings us back to the beginning.
In the end, Zeman was influenced by financial interests. He was naturally pleased to have media outlets supporting him and his more pro-business and pro-Russian-oriented position.
The question is: what was Russia’s role in this?
Adam Sybera:
We are now entering very niche areas of Czech politics.
A frequent claim in discussions about Ukraine is that the Western left represents the pro-Russian force.
However, if you look at Zeman at the beginning of the war — and I am very far from being a defender of Zeman — he actually said that Putin had gone mad and that the invasion was illegal.
The first person in the Czech Republic to begin saying otherwise was Václav Klaus, a right-wing conservative politician.
He is simply pro-Russian filthy shit. Václav Klaus is pro-Russian filthy shit.
To be honest, Zeman is as well.
Vojtěch Boháč:
The reason is that the Czech Republic has many small cities whose industries are focused on exporting to post-Soviet countries.
These companies cannot compete in more advanced markets, but they are sufficiently competitive in the post-Soviet market.
This is a central problem for the Czech Republic.
I criticised the Alta group because, by 2014, it was already clear that Russia was aggressive. These companies should have tried to become competitive in markets other than Russia, but they did not.
In the end, their only remaining option is to support political forces that want to restore acceptable relations with Russia.
These actors are influential. They are industrial businesspeople in small cities, and they tell local communities: “The Czech government’s aggressive position towards Russia means we will have to dismiss 5,000 employees.”
People then conclude: “It is terrible that Fiala, or our former government, was so anti-Russian, because it means we will lose the good jobs we previously had.”
That is the situation.