Photo: Press service of the Verkhovna Rada

The Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Ruslan Stefanchuk raised the flag of the Czech Republic in the parliament as a sign of gratitude to the Czech people for their support of Ukraine. This gesture was a response to the actions of the newly elected Speaker of the Czech Chamber of Deputies, Tomio Okamura, from the far-right SPD (Freedom and Direct Democracy) party, who ordered to remove the Ukrainian flag from the parliamentary building the day before .

"I want us to always remember Moscow's criminal role in the partition of Czechoslovakia in 1938 and the Prague Spring, which it drowned in blood in 1968. Because, as the first president of the modern Czech Republic, Vaclav Havel, said: "Russia, of course, still does not know where its borders are." He once warned: "Russia will resume those of its traditions that are historically typical for it, namely the imperial tradition of expansion in directions and territories that do not, in fact, belong to it." Let us remember these words of the great Havel. And let's be responsible: for our words, for our actions, and for the future," Stefanchuk wrote in Facebook .

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Tomio Okamura, who leads an anti-Ukrainian party, personally held a ladder during the removal of the Ukrainian flag that has been hanging on the building of the Czech Chamber of Deputies since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022 as a symbol of solidarity with Ukraine.

Okamura's predecessor in the post, Marketa Pekarova Adamova, called the move to remove the flag a "shameful gesture" towards both Ukraine and the values shared by the Czech Republic. A number of leaders of the parties that were in power before the election condemned the new speaker's decision, calling it an act that undermines solidarity and the country's pro-Western orientation.