Czech Republic responds to Russian Envoy’s FT article

Wednesday, 13 May 2020 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Ambassador of the Czech Republic to Sri Lanka Milan Hovorka has issued the following statement correcting what was described as misleading claims contained in the article of the Ambassador of the Russian Federation to Sri Lanka Yuri Materiy in Daily FT of 9 May concerning the fate of the statue of Marshal Ivan Konev in Prague

The statue of Marshal Konev was not demolished but provisionally transferred to an art depository with the intention of including it in the collection of the planned Museum of the 20th Century in Prague.

The statue, erected in 1980 (12 years after the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1968), will be replaced by a new monument dedicated to the liberation of Prague from Nazi occupation in 1945. This decision lying within the competence of the local authorities was not motivated by intentions suggested by the esteemed Ambassador (rehabilitation of Nazism, falsification of history), but by the controversy surrounding Marshal Konev, who regrettably not only liberated Prague in 1945, but also commanded the bloody suppression of the Hungarian Uprising in 1956, participated in the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961 and played a role in the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.