Okamura’s New Year speech sparks surge in donations for aid to Ukraine

The controversial New Year’s speech by the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Tomio Okamura (SPD), has sparked a wave of donations to collections supporting Ukraine, organised by the initiative A Gift for Putin. This was confirmed by representative of the initiative, Martin Ondráček.

According to Ondráček, on New Year’s Day, when Okamura’s speech was released, the collections received 780,000 CZK (32,200 EUR) – compared with 162,000 CZK (6,690 EUR) on the same day the previous year.

In his address Okamura criticised the provision of weapons to Ukraine and the leadership of the Ukrainian state.