News

Prime Minister Andre Babiš says the Czech government will go ahead with planned acquisitions for the country’s army despite the economic downturn caused by the coronavirus. Speaking at the start of a conference about the Czech Republic’s security and position in NATO, Mr. Babiš said a loan might be required but the purchases of infantry fighting vehicles would still go ahead.

The PM said the country was not investing in defence to fulfill NATO requirements but because its security was primarily its own responsibility.

The Visgrad Four countries will make joint purchases of munitions for small weapons, their ministers of defence agreed in Prague on Wednesday. The Czech Republic’s presidency of the group is ending but it will still oversee the project, its minister of defence, Lubomír Metnar, said at a news conference with counterparts from Slovakia and Hungary and the deputy defence minister of Poland. Mr. Metnar said the project could be completed this year. The Czech Republic is just about to hand the presidency of the V4 over to Poland.

An exhibition presenting symbols of Czech statehood has opened at the main building of the National Museum in Prague. Simply entitled Symbols, it contains around 100 unique items, including the Order of the White Lion (the highest state honour), a curtain from the presidential box at the National Theatre and the score of the national anthem. The exhibition runs until the end of August.

Wednesday is the 78th anniversary of the Nazi annihilation of the Czech village of Ležáky. On June 24, 1942 the Nazis killed all 33 of the village’s adults, both men and women, as part of reprisals for the assassination of Nazi governor Reinhard Heydrich the previous month. The Gestapo had discovered that the paratroopers sent to kill Heydrich had a kept a radio transmitter there.

Two of Ležáky’s 13 children were taken away for Germanisation, but were located and returned after the war, while the rest were gassed at a concentration camp later in summer 1942.