Czech Radio Plus conference to spotlight Ukraine’s future and Europe’s defence strategy
Fragile Security: The Future of Ukraine and the European Continent is the title of a conference being held by Czech Radio’s Plus station in Prague next Wednesday. President Petr Pavel will be among those speaking, alongside big-name guests from Ukraine, Poland and the US. I discussed the conference with Josef Pazderka, head of Plus.
How many years has this event been running, and what’s the concept behind it?
“This is the fourth year of the international conference that we have been running at Czech Radio Plus.
“And the focus is more or less the same. It’s the current situation around Ukraine, security issues surrounding it – and obviously the media.
“We are Czech Radio and there’s a strong link to public radio and television in Ukraine. Czech Radio has supported them continuously since the beginning of the full-scale war.
“So the focus is the same, but the guests are different. We are very happy to have had Timothy Snyder, Peter Pomertantsev. The Czech president has come repeatedly.
“We have many international guests and we are quite happy that the line-up this year will be very interesting as well.”
From this year’s line-up, who are the people you are most looking forward to hearing speak?
“I’m still a bit nervous about Valery Zaluzhny coming from London. We announced him in the line-up last year, and at the last moment he had to cancel because of a very busy schedule.
“But he promised to come this year and it looks much more realistic, so we hope it will happen.
“I look forward also to Oleksandra Matviychuk, the Nobel Prize winner from Ukraine. She’s confirmed and she’s already on her way.
“But I actually look forward to most of the speakers, because it’s a new mixture for us.
“We have Slawomir Sierakowski from Poland. From the States we have Simon Schuster from the Atlantic, who will give us a perspective on Donald Trump and European security, in the light of the current challenges coming from the US administration.
“And I also look forward to Oleksandra Matviychuk with Natalija Humenyuk: two Ukrainian women speaking about their war experiences, but also their vision of the future of their country when the violence will end – what the main challenges are for Ukraine.”
You mentioned President Pavel, who is going to be introducing a talk called Ukraine at War. What does it mean for Plus that he will be speaking at your conference?
“It’s a great honour for us, obviously.
“The last panel, which he will be opening, will focus more on military issues.
“President Pavel is a former general and he was on the high command of NATO.
“Then we’ll have Valery Zaluzhny sharing a security vision for Europe, which will heavily rely on the Ukrainian experience and the Ukrainian Army.
“And then we will have the current chief of staff of the Czech Army, Karel Řehka, and possibly Jakub Landovský, the new government envoy for NATO issues.
“So it will be quite interesting and I think we will see the real perspective for the Czech Republic and the European continent, with regard to security issues and armies and the military.”
I presume you’ll be recording these fascinating talks for your listeners, who will get a lot of out them. But still, why does a radio station want to organise events like this?
“Because we want to speak directly to the people.
“Also Prague is a wonderful place and they love to come. It’s kind of a symbol.
“It’s quite interesting – in many cases foreign speakers come to Czech Radio conferences because of the history of this institution.
“They know that there were fierce fights for freedom in 1945 and in 1968.
“And especially for people like Oleksandra Matviychuk or Valery Zaluzhny – last year it was Dmytro Kuleba, it was Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitchko – when they hear the name of Czech Radio they always relate to some kind of historic experience that the Czechs and Slovaks had in the past that is very similar to the Ukrainian experience now.
“I think issues of common solidarity, of common security, of support in the light of intervention from the outside are things that resonate very clearly with them when you mention Czech Radio.”
Fragile Security: The Future of Ukraine and the European Continent
Vzlet, Prague 10
May 20, 16:00–21:45 (two of four panels will be in English)
Related
-
-
“Truth in Motion” conference: Insights on Ukraine and the fight against disinformation
Czech Radio station Plus hosted the Truth in Motion conference, focusing on the quality of information and the role of the media.
