"We Czechs know very well what it is." Pavel warned against a new Munich agreement
President of the Czech Republic Peter Paul is convinced that Ukraine should be represented in any negotiations on the settlement of the war and warned against repeating the Munich Agreement. He expressed this opinion in an interview with Polish TVN24+, recorded before the talks in Geneva, to the British newspaper The Guardian.
The Czech president insists that Ukraine should be fully involved in any negotiations with Russia, saying that excluding the country from the talks would draw parallels with the Munich Agreement of 1938, saying: "This is their territory, this is their country, their people, their lives."
Pavel warned that any decisions without Ukraine's substantial participation risk creating a Munich-like situation, "and we Czechs know very well what that is."
The Czech president rejected Russia's initial demands, such as restrictions on Ukraine's ability to join NATO. But he also acknowledged that while he fully understood that "the very thought of losing even an inch of territory is extremely painful" for Ukrainians, given the current state of affairs on the battlefield, "realistically, some loss of territory [to Russia] is very likely."
However, he insisted that any such territory should never be legally recognized as Russian. Drawing on his security experience, Pavel also said that the collective West should seek to resolve some broader issues with Russia by renewing arms control treaties and regulating military exercises.
The Munich Agreement is a document signed on the night of September 30, 1938, at an international conference by the heads of government of Germany (Adolf Hitler), Great Britain (Neville Chamberlain), France (Edouard Daladier), and Italy (Benito Mussolini). Without the participation of representatives of Czechoslovakia, the meeting discussed Germany's demand for the transfer of the Sudetenland region with a predominantly German population (over 3 million people).
The document provided for the separation from Czechoslovakia and the transfer of the Sudetenland to Germany between October 1 and October 10, 1938, with all fortifications, equipment, weapons, factories, mines, railways, raw materials, etc.
- On November 23, dozens of politicians from Ukraine and Europe publicly appealed to Trump and warned him against appeasing the aggressor before discussing a "peace plan."
- The initial version of the plan proposed by the United States stated that Ukraine should give up Donbas and some weapons, as well as reduce the number of the Armed Forces up to 600,000. All 28 points of the plan are here.
Comments