Czech Defence Minister to meet with with Defence Secretary Austin in US
Czech Defence Minister Jana Černochová is flying to the United States this Wednesday. The symbolic aim of her visit to the NATO ally is to bring back the remains of WWII Czechoslovak intelligence chief František Moravec and to meet with her US counterpart Lloyd Austin. Ahead of her flight Ms Černochová told news site Seznam Zprávy that she hopes the two countries will eventually sign a bilateral defence cooperation agreement.
Another point on the agenda is the possibility of securing further US military helicopters for the Czech Armed Forces. The Czech defence minister told the news site that the Soviet-era MI-24 helicopters which the Czech Army currently has in its arsenal are becoming outdated and that it is increasingly difficult to find spare parts for them. If it were possible to acquire US-made helicopters within a short period of time, the Czech Republic will then start looking into where it could send its MI-24s, Ms Černochová said. She did not wish to comment on whether the Soviet-era helicopters could then be sent to Ukraine, but also did not deny it.
The previous Czech government of Andrej Babis had already ordered 12 military helicopters from the US. However, Ms Černochová said that it had already been clear at that time that more would be needed.
Brigadier General František Moravec, whose remains will be transported back to Czechia, was the head of Czechoslovak Military Intelligence during the 1930s and WWII. Leaving for exile in London just ahead of Nazi Germany’s invasion of the rump state of Czechoslovakia in 1939, Moravec managed to take many of his team and documents with him and continue intelligence operations in exile during the war. He participated in planning Operation Anthropoid, which resulted in the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. Leaving Czechoslovakia again in 1948, when the Communist Party took over power, Moravec moved to the United States where he worked as a defence advisor. He died in Washington D.C. in 1966.
