A total of 129 out of the 156 MPs voted in favour of the resolution, and only 14 voted against it, all of the populist far-right Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) party. The remaining 13 MPs from various political forces abstained.
The recognition of Russia as a terrorist state has marked the end of the years-long policy of Prague’s rapprochement with Moscow promoted by Miloš Zeman, formerly the PM and currently the president of the country.
Zeman called it quits with Russia on his own, cynically and easily switching sides by joining his former political opponents this year. “This is an act of unprovoked aggression which should be consistently condemned not only with words, but also with actions,” Zeman said. “Russia has lost almost everything and gained nothing by invading Ukraine.”
Zeman is not the only “pro-Russian” Czech politician, but it was him who became the symbol of “friendship with Russia”. Although the role of president is somewhat ceremonial (the Czech Republic is a parliamentary country, directly administered by the Prime Minister and his cabinet), Zeman has managed to broaden his political influence over the decades of his career. His Russophilia was, to a large extent, founded upon the long history of Moscow-Prague relationships.
The Moscow pendulum
The Czech romantic Russophilia traces back to the late 18th century when the leaders of the Czech National Revival sought support in a strong and independent “Slavic brother” longing for their own national identity.
Karel Havlíček Borovský, a prominent poet and journalist, came to Moscow in the 1840s with a bagful of Slavophilic beliefs, but had his ideals dissipated rather quickly, hammered by the reality of an absolutist imperial regime. Borovský was left disillusioned after meeting the Russian Panslavists: “Russians refer to everything Russian as Slavic only to refer to everything Slavic as Russian afterwards,” he wrote in his Pictures from Russia.
Following the 1989 Velvet Revolution, the main issue in the Moscow-Prague relationship was the Soviet military presence from Czechoslovakia. Starting from 1991, when the troops had withdrawn, the relationship began to improve significantly.
A real breakthrough happened in the late 1990s owing to two things: the beginning of Czechia’s process of joining NATO which provided a feeling of military security, and the intention of Zeman, then PM, to improve the mutual relationship.