The heads of the Czech and Polish Senates called on parliaments to support Ukraine
Updates: 04/20/2022 13:00
Released: 20.04.2022, 12:47
Prague – According to the heads of the Czech and Polish Senates, the parliaments of democratic countries should seek the support of Ukraine, which maintains Russian aggression, including military aid. Legislature representatives Tomasz Grodzki and his Czech counterpart Miloš Vystrčil (ODS) called on the Marshal of the Polish Upper House in a joint letter today.
According to Grodzki, the letter calls on parliaments to use their authority to persuade their government in Ukraine, especially military aid. “If we do too little to defend Ukraine, history will not forgive us. If we do everything in the power of the free world to help Ukraine end this war victoriously, history will not forget us,” Grodzki said in a letter.
The Marshal of the Polish Senate hopes that the letter, created under the impression of his recent visit to Ukraine together with Vystrčil, will at least help the victory over “the civilization of death, contempt for human lives and human rights”.
According to Vystrčil, the letter was signed by the heads of parliamentary chambers symbolically in the salon of the Kolovrat Palace, where in 1938 the then government was acquainted with the contents of the Munich Agreement on the Occupation of the Czechoslovak Border by Nazi Germany. “The Munich Agreement is a memento of what happens when freedom and democracy are in another country, because it does not seem to concern us, we do not care and we do not help,” said Vystrčil. The letter to the parliaments is therefore not to leave Ukraine “in the lurch” so as not to share the fate of pre-war Czechoslovakia.
Vystrčil and Grodzki last Thursday visited Kyiv and the nearby cities of Bucha, Irpin and Borodanka, which had previously been occupied by the Russian army. He then stuck out in a speech in the Ukrainian parliament, comparing the fate of these Ukrainian cities to the villages of Lidice and Ležáky, which were exterminated by the Nazis during World War II. Ukraine has promised reconstruction aid while speaking out against peace at the cost of Ukraine’s territorial concessions.
During today’s meeting, Grodzki and Vystrčil also discussed helping refugees from Ukraine in terms of providing health care and other social security. They also talked about the financing of this refugee crisis, the possibility of military aid to Ukraine and its post-war reconstruction. At noon, the heads of parliamentary chambers had a program to honor the memory of the fallen at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Vítkov, where they were accompanied by the Ukrainian Ambassador to the Czech Republic, Yevhen Perebyjnis.