Ukrainian activists outraged by Zeman

Prague/Kyiv, Feb 28 (CTK) – The statements by some European politicians, especially those by Czech President Milos Zeman, are alarming, Ukrainian activists Serhiy Prytula and Vasyl Halamay said in an interview with CTK yesterday.
“He said there are no Russian soldiers in Ukraine. But you are in NATO and its generals have evidence on the movement of Russian troops,” television presenter and comedian Prytula said.
“I can understand all of this, I understand that you need Russian gas, but if you pursue your policy in this way, you should stop speaking about democracy and human rights,” Prytula said.
Czechs’ memory is quite short-lived. They may have forgotten what was going on with German troops in the 1930s, he added.
„Now we have the same in Ukraine. If you think that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin will stop in Ukraine, you are wrong,“ Prytula said, adding that he recently visited the Czech spa town of Karlovy Vary, west Bohemia.
He said he tried in vain to find a Czech text in public areas as most of them were in Russian.
„You should realise that Russian soldiers mostly invade a country with the objective of protecting Russian-speaking people,” Prytula said.
“As a result, they can easily come and protect their own people in Karlovy Vary,“ he added.
Karlovy Vary is a favourite destination of Russians.
„We must fight not only in the war, but also in politics, in the whole society and on all fronts,“ Halamay said.
The war will only end after all the countries that signed the Budapest Memorandum from 1994 start behaving correctly, he added.
As far as the Western countries are concerned, these are the USA and Britain, Halamay said.
„At that time, it was signed that Ukraine is an independent country and no one could change its border. But what is Russia doing? And the rest?” he added.
“They only keep saying: We are really concerned, we are afraid of the escalation of the situation. But this is not enough!“ Halamay said.
The two Ukrainians agreed that in the past no one had divided people into those from the west and the east or into the Russian and Ukrainian-speaking ones in Ukraine.
„And then the disappointment came. Ukrainians and Russians were like brothers for a long time,” Prytula said.
“Russians always believed we are the younger brothers. But we could not imagine that Russians will take their arms and tanks, come to my country and kill our people,” he added.
“What is going on in Putin’s head? I do not understand this,“ Prytula said.
Earlier this week, both Ukrainians spoke in the debate Year Without Yanukovych staged by the Vaclav Havel Library along with the Prague Maidan group.
Halamay was also previously in the Czech Republic. He was treated there for four months after he was wounded by a sniper’s shot in his leg during the uprising against Yanukovych’s government in the Maidan Square in Kyiv in 2014.