Helping Ukraine is in the national interest of the Czech Republic and will continue, although the forms of this support may change.
Lieutenant General Radek Hasala, chief of the Military Office of the President of the Czech Republic, said this in an interview with Ukrinform.
"I cannot imagine Czechia being anywhere other than alongside Ukraine. From international, security and military perspectives, Ukraine's success in defending its territory is also a vital interest of Czechia," Hasala said.
He noted that support for Ukraine has been officially declared and will continue. At the same time, Hasala said he would like to see state support strengthened to match the enormous level of support for Ukraine from Czech society.
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Hasala admitted that he was pleasantly surprised by the wave of public support for Ukraine from the very beginning of the war, when Czechs helped people arriving from Ukraine, actively joined various initiatives, and continue to support both major projects and smaller civic initiatives.
According to Hasala, he is proud that at the state level, Czechia was the first country to provide Ukraine with tanks and heavy artillery in 2022, showing other European countries that this was possible. Although the volume of military aid subsequently decreased as stockpiles were gradually depleted, commercial cooperation and exports of new or modernized weapons began to grow. Czech companies are interested in cooperation.
The general also mentioned the Czech ammunition initiative, which at its peak was supplying or arranging, through Czech mediation, the delivery of nearly half of the artillery ammunition needed by Ukrainian forces. The initiative is no longer the number one issue, but it remains important.