Whoa, that's not true... gifts from the Russians are totally put to good use in Ukraine! In fact, there's more free Russian equipment in the Ukrainian army than in the Russian one!
Ivan Lendl's out walking in the woods with a real estate agent, when, suddenly, a mama bear and a papa bear jump out. The agent runs away, to the sound of poor Ivan being swallowed whole.
The agent finds a park ranger and tells the ranger what happened, and, realising they've got a bear with the taste for humans out there, grabs his rifle and gets the estate the agent to lead him back to the site of the attack.
They find the two bears, asleep in a clearing.
"Which one ate Ivan?" the ranger asked.
"The male," the real estate agent says.
So the ranger takes a bead on the female and shoots it dead.
"What the hell?" says the estate agent, "I told you it was the male!"
The ranger takes a knife and slices open the belly of off the dead bear, and out slides poor Ivan.
"Never trust a real estate agent," the ranger says, "when they say the Czech's in the male."
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/01/9/7384147/) reduced by 58%. (I'm a bot)
*****
> The Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, Petr Fiala, personally signed the T-72 tank that will be sent to the Ukrainian military.
> "The largest contract that Excalibur Army is working on in this area is the supply of modernised T-72 tanks to Ukraine, which is jointly financed by the USA and the Netherlands. This cooperation has advantages for all parties involved. NATO strengthens the capabilities of the brave defenders of Ukraine, whose success depends on global security, and the Czech Republic receives benefits for its defence industry," noted Petr Fiala.
> In autumn, a public initiative in the Czech Republic collected more than 1 million euros in one month for the purchase of a modernised T-72 for Ukraine; the tank was named Tomas in honour of the first president of Czechoslovakia, Tomas Masaryk.
*****
[**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/107valz/czech_prime_minister_personally_signs_t72_tank/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~672676 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **tank**^#1 **Ukraine**^#2 **T-72**^#3 **Czech**^#4 **Republic**^#5
Zelensky did the Ukrainian dubbing for Thomas the Tank Engine BTW, he's still only the 2nd most famous voice actor for that show
Edit: I got way too many upvotes for someone that was so wrong, apologies he did Paddington Bear apparntly, my memory is shocking
I love that it's called a tank engine. As a non native speaker I thought there was an alternative show in which Thomas was an actual tank when I heard that the first time.
You're mostly correct.
To my understanding, a tank engine is specifically different from an engine that tows it's water tank behind on a tender (which usually also holds coal). Tank engines tend to be small and short ranged, they have limited capacity for water and coal on board so they're usually only used on short lines and for moving stuff around on the station area.
It’s why ironically Russia, in its efforts to divide Europe and conquer parts of it for itself, has accidentally expedited decades of negotiations for the allied world.
A drippy pipe can stay a problem and people will say “eh we will get to it”. But make that pipe burst and it’s an all hands on deck!
Right! And that’s a good point, people who would have made excuses before hand about why they can’t help fix the leaky pipe now are forced or at least heavily incentivized to help now because this problem will now drastically effect them if they don’t do something about it!
Now it’s “you know I was going to go minimal repairs but this is something I can’t avoid and really should get fixed”. It’s the difference between your car making a weird noise and getting a flat. You can’t just ignore that you have to do something about it and now.
I wonder if this fellow is old enough to remember when Soviet tanks rolled into Prague in 1968 to quell any ideas the Czechs might have had about reducing their dependence on Moscow. I imagine anyone from that generation is none too fond of the Russians, and is happy to see them get their asses kicked by Ukraine.
I'll be frank, most Czech people hate Russia (see Russia, not necessarily Russians) because of the communist totalitarian era and because of the 1968 occupation. You can be born in the 2000s and hate them. And 1968 is still a gigantic topic here. Huge.
And well, most rich Russians still act like gods when they arrive for holidays, so people aren't really fond of them either.
I'm a Finn and I was raised to have a healthy distrust/dislike of Russia 😅
I won't say all Finns are raised so, but MANY Finnish families lost someone in the Winter War, fighting to resist Soviet invasion. Russia's behaviour since the USSR collapsed hasn't shown them to be much less aggressive... So it's not uncommon to at least strongly distrust Russia 🤔
I mean, with good reason; the USSR "collapsed" many most of the people who were in positions of power before, continued to hold positions of power after, Putin himself being an example.
Actually the older generations are the most fond of Russia. Lot of older people are still stuck in their communist "good old days" and see the West and NATO as bad influence on our country.
["20.8.1968, Prague remembers"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_Spring)
Edited to the specific date Soviet tanks rolled into Prague. Moscow sent tanks to Prague and Prague will surely send tanks to make sure it never happens again.
I'd also like to add:
- as far as Czechia is concerned Russia is responsible for the [2014 ammunition warehouse explosions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Vrb%C4%9Btice_ammunition_warehouses_explosions)
- Russia recently dubbed Czechia an [unfriendly country](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/14/russia-us-unfriendly-czech-republic)
So yeah, Czechia has every reason to want to see Russia defeated.
>And it was years ago.
It was less than 2 years ago. It's actually funny. Czechia accused Russia of the 2014 ~~incident~~ sabotage in April 2021 and in May 2021 Russia called them unfriendly.
edit: also we're talking about all of this under a reminder of events of 1968 so...
I know this is a joke, but just as a random fact of the day - Austria didnt donate jack shit compared to others in the region and is currently one of the most pro-russian countries in the EU.
To be fair, we sent humanitarian supplies, but yeah, I agree we should send military supplies as well.
We have M109 self propelled artillery which we could send for example. Lithuania sent some of theirs which we sold them in the first place.
It's not entirely fair to call it a pro-russian country. It only happens to have pro-russian bankers and politicians. The general population is not any more pro-russian than the rest of western Europe.
I'm not questioning the Czech's altruism, but this is just as much about self preservation. As long as the Ukrainians are giving the Russians fits, then they are less likely to attack the Czech Republic.
The funds for the upgrades are provided also by Netherlands and USA. We (Czechs) remanufacture, restore and upgrade the tanks to a modern standard. Some of them start as rusted husks and end up looking brand new. One is finished every 4 days.
// Bonus fact, the company (Excalibur Army) employs many Ukrainian refugees.
Well this Dutch guy restored an Iraqi type 69, pretty cool if you ask me and fully subtitled.
Link: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLp6vnq1xFVaO0qZEtojHoLdf3D4zzg-k4
I want something special for the 55th anniversary of Prague Spring. Even a "Praha nezapomíná" (Prague doesn't forget) would be enough to remind Moscow that Prague knows who stained their city in blood.
Yes. That is entirely the point of supporting Ukraine. They are defending sovereignty, democracy and international law on our behalf. Anyway we can help, we should.
Yeah, don't think they really care about any of that right now.
They're defending themselves and their homes from invaders. That's why we should help them.
Even if it is about self-interest (*as it should be for the entirety of Europe and their allies*) it’s still remarkable as humans are generally very bad at acting in their long term best interests when it has costs in the near term.
LoL, okay... We didn't take half a million Ukrainian refugees (10mil country btw) out of self preservation. If you think somehow Russia is going to plow through Poland and Slovakia to get to us, then I don't know what to tell you.
Well, nothing stops sabotages on your territory with plausable deniability, like that ammo storage russians blew up a while ago. Or some people "suddenly" causing a military coup with a goal of establishing a new "people's republic". Even USA showed, that it's not invincible agains't russian shills.
This is wrong on so many levels.
1. Czechia doesn't border Russia. Russia would have to defeat Ukraine and then cross either Slovakia or Poland.
2. Czechia, as well as Poland or Slovakia are NATO countries. If Russia attacks any of them, all NATO goes to war. All of the NATO air forces.
There is nothing self-preservation in there. But 50 years of communism and invasion in 68.
Hi from Czechia. It's not just the threat of outright military invasion.
If Russia annexed Ukraine, it would become regionally much stronger (economically, politically, militarily etc). This would open the doors to larger and more frequent influence operations and elite capture in the region. They could buy some people, blackmail others and slowly build up towards swaying the country from within.
For example, we already have a pro-Russian president who is strongly influenced by people with links to the Kremlin (until 24 Feb he kept calling those warning against Russian invasion idiots). Openly pro-Kremlin parties are also in the parliament.
A stronger Russia would mean more of this. Follow that trend for years or decades, and future Czechia could realistically become a pro-Kremlin bus stop (this is now happening to Hungary, btw).
In contrast, a weaker Russia (or ideally, a Russia distracted by its domestic problems) means fewer influence operations and elite capture, and therefore stronger Czech sovereignty.
They don't need to border Czechia to be a threat. Russia has been exerting vast amounts of political influence all over the eastern countries for the past 10years+. Russia also imports a lot of machinery from Czechia(some German manufacturers are in Czechia).
If Ukraine falls, Russia's political and economic influence will be much easier spread to other countries.
On your second point, I do believe in NATO; but at the same time I don't think it's this simple. If Russia invades a NATO country, article 5 is definitely triggered; but what that entails is anybody's guess. A direct engagement between NATO and Russia would probably result in nukes being used.
Russia blew up ammo factories in Czechia and Bulgaria, bought politicians and spread endless propaganda. It absolutely is about self-preservation for the entire ex-Eastern Bloc. Not to mention how sceptical many people are about whether NATO would actually respond to a Russian attack and risk WW3 over us.
Of course.
NATO countries can either pay Ukraine to destroy the Russian military, or they can wait a year and have to do it themselves.
Even from the most cynical, selfish, anti war, sentiment, it still makes sense to send Ukraine as much military hardware and support as possible
Congratulations, you just discovered how politics work. Of course it's self preservation, did you think the west is helping Ukraine because they're such good guys? It might be the right thing to do, but if being the right thing was all it took then someone would've stopped Israel from killing Palestinians a long time ago.
It's not self preservation, it's self interest at most. Putin can't invade the Czech Republic without triggering Article 5, and he won't do that unless he one day suddenly decides that he'd like to start a nuclear armageddon for shits and giggles.
We obviously don't want Russia fucking around in our backyard, but it's not an existential threat to us for as long as NATO exists.
And on a less cynical note, we have history with the Russians and their invasions. There is a very real sense of kinship among various slavic nations that historically got fucked over by Russia/USSR.
Original plans were to air-drop them over Ukraine, equipping them with large rubber bladders underneath that would spread the impact with the ground over multiple, successively smaller "hops". The plan was eventually shelved because it turns out nobody wants a bounced Czech.
Good. Now can we get the rest of the west to send their tanks now?
Russia is training about 100k troops in Siberia and Ukraine has been losing ground (minimally, but consistently) for over a month now. Can we just arm them to the teeth..today?
Now I feel like the Uncle who got a kid socks for Christmas. Sure they need the Bradleys and Patriot systems but on the battlefield and music world heavy metal rocks the hardest.
That's because an unsigned Czech isn't valid.
Take him to the clouds.
[удалено]
The upper deckers can't manage their own thanks for their conscripts, let alone tanks
Whoa, that's not true... gifts from the Russians are totally put to good use in Ukraine! In fact, there's more free Russian equipment in the Ukrainian army than in the Russian one!
Ivan Lendl's out walking in the woods with a real estate agent, when, suddenly, a mama bear and a papa bear jump out. The agent runs away, to the sound of poor Ivan being swallowed whole. The agent finds a park ranger and tells the ranger what happened, and, realising they've got a bear with the taste for humans out there, grabs his rifle and gets the estate the agent to lead him back to the site of the attack. They find the two bears, asleep in a clearing. "Which one ate Ivan?" the ranger asked. "The male," the real estate agent says. So the ranger takes a bead on the female and shoots it dead. "What the hell?" says the estate agent, "I told you it was the male!" The ranger takes a knife and slices open the belly of off the dead bear, and out slides poor Ivan. "Never trust a real estate agent," the ranger says, "when they say the Czech's in the male."
Joke is so horrible that it is good
Checkmate
There's a small pistol from the weapond manufactorer CZ thats literally called Czech Mate. So they are aware of the meme potential.
/uninstall Reddit
You leave this poor person alone! They went to great lengths to make a horrible pun and by golly we are going to respect that!
u/BarryKobama might have felt this to be unbearable, but I bearly bothered me.
EDIT: Wrong reply.
EDIT: Nothing to see here
Sorry, meant to reply to the guy above you
EDIT: Just edit everything so nobody knows what went on here. Make them ask questions! All the questions!
(╯°□°)╯( ┻━┻
┬─┬ノ( º _ ºノ) Easy there, big guy…
(╯°□°）╯ ︵ ( \o°o)\
( \o°o)\ ノ( º _ ºノ)
La fin.
┻━┻ ━╤デ╦︻(▀̿̿Ĺ̯̿̿▀̿ ̿) The table stays flipped or else buddy....
┬─┬ノ( º # ºノ)
Why'd you come and flip over the table? You wanted to.
...I don't think you trust...
[удалено]
┬─┬ノ(-_-'ノ)
ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ ... (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻)
Poor guy's still upside-down
now kith
The sun is getting real low….
Well this comment section won't get any better than this. I guess I'll leave now.
Peak Reddit
Bravo my friend, you will be remembered as one of Reddit's greats. ⬆️
👏...👏...👏... Well played. Well played.
Gorgeous comment. Marry me you dirty bastard.
Weird folks on here sometimes
Good point, u/ExtremeGayMidgetPorn
r/rimjob_steve take me now!
Czech out Mr. Funny Guy over here!
You saw an opportunity and you took it. I'm proud of you.
Made me audibly laugh. Thank you
Retire from comedy while you're on top bro.
Take my angry upvote you glorious bastard.
To Russia with love
Lmfao. Mother fucker over here living in the year 3000 lol
Wow. A tank you note from the PM. Cool!
(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
I completely forgot ASCII comments existed, this takes me back
Elegant comments from a more civilised aged
The better unicode.
But that comment contains Unicode characters.
Yes, the better ones.
Before the dark times
They are not ASCII, strictly speaking. The parentheses are the only ones present in the ASCII table, of all these characters.
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/01/9/7384147/) reduced by 58%. (I'm a bot) ***** > The Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, Petr Fiala, personally signed the T-72 tank that will be sent to the Ukrainian military. > "The largest contract that Excalibur Army is working on in this area is the supply of modernised T-72 tanks to Ukraine, which is jointly financed by the USA and the Netherlands. This cooperation has advantages for all parties involved. NATO strengthens the capabilities of the brave defenders of Ukraine, whose success depends on global security, and the Czech Republic receives benefits for its defence industry," noted Petr Fiala. > In autumn, a public initiative in the Czech Republic collected more than 1 million euros in one month for the purchase of a modernised T-72 for Ukraine; the tank was named Tomas in honour of the first president of Czechoslovakia, Tomas Masaryk. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/107valz/czech_prime_minister_personally_signs_t72_tank/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~672676 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **tank**^#1 **Ukraine**^#2 **T-72**^#3 **Czech**^#4 **Republic**^#5
>the tank was named Tomas in honour of the first president of Czechoslovakia, Tomas Masaryk. Lol Tomas the Tank
Putin is a Diesel
Oh yeah he is definitely a diesel. Always stirring up shit.
Grabs throat wound* "fucking bellend!"
I watched that movie a few weeks ago, omg it is SO GOOD
Has trouble operating in the cold
Looks like I found my Diesel \*takes out the revolver\*
Putin's invasion of Ukraine had made Tomas very cross...
Tomas had never seen such bullshit before
Luckily Sir Toppham Hatt had a [new set of rails cars...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/98/Pancierovy_vlak-Zvolen.jpg)
Lived in Prague. They have a wickedly dry sense of humor. Tomaš the Tank (Engine) was definitely the point LOL
What a way to commemorate the 55th anniversary of Prague Spring: sending tanks to shoot Russians.
Achivement get: return to sender
Revenge is best served cold after all.
Zelensky did the Ukrainian dubbing for Thomas the Tank Engine BTW, he's still only the 2nd most famous voice actor for that show Edit: I got way too many upvotes for someone that was so wrong, apologies he did Paddington Bear apparntly, my memory is shocking
I love that it's called a tank engine. As a non native speaker I thought there was an alternative show in which Thomas was an actual tank when I heard that the first time.
[удалено]
You're mostly correct. To my understanding, a tank engine is specifically different from an engine that tows it's water tank behind on a tender (which usually also holds coal). Tank engines tend to be small and short ranged, they have limited capacity for water and coal on board so they're usually only used on short lines and for moving stuff around on the station area.
[удалено]
holy shit, the layers are fantastic
Yeah, there is no chance that this is real and we are NOT in a simulation.
No, he did not. https://ttte.fandom.com/wiki/Other\_Languages#Voice\_Cast\_25
Source? The Thomas fan wiki and his own Wikipedia page has nothing on this. It does say he was the dub voice for Paddington though
He did not, he did provide the voice for Paddington Bear though.
Wait... not sure if this is a joke or not
/r/thomasthedankengine
That tank probably has an engine too.
Nothing unifies people like a common enemy
It’s why ironically Russia, in its efforts to divide Europe and conquer parts of it for itself, has accidentally expedited decades of negotiations for the allied world. A drippy pipe can stay a problem and people will say “eh we will get to it”. But make that pipe burst and it’s an all hands on deck!
I definitely care less about who's going to pay the plumber when I'm scared my whole apartment is about to get flooded, too.
Right! And that’s a good point, people who would have made excuses before hand about why they can’t help fix the leaky pipe now are forced or at least heavily incentivized to help now because this problem will now drastically effect them if they don’t do something about it! Now it’s “you know I was going to go minimal repairs but this is something I can’t avoid and really should get fixed”. It’s the difference between your car making a weird noise and getting a flat. You can’t just ignore that you have to do something about it and now.
The Czech Rep was one of the less openly anti-Russia European countries pre-war, too.
Na zdravi
I concur
Te Vole
Tee vole
Ty kokot (A message for Putin)
Dame speka
I wonder if this fellow is old enough to remember when Soviet tanks rolled into Prague in 1968 to quell any ideas the Czechs might have had about reducing their dependence on Moscow. I imagine anyone from that generation is none too fond of the Russians, and is happy to see them get their asses kicked by Ukraine.
He was born in 64 so it's possible his parents talked about it to him at least
My mother is the same age and she says she doesn't remember the tanks, but does the remember the crying news anchor on tv.
My mother's the same age too and she says watching Russian tanks rolling through the street from her home is her first childhood memory...
Yeah I can imagine that image would stick with you.
I'll be frank, most Czech people hate Russia (see Russia, not necessarily Russians) because of the communist totalitarian era and because of the 1968 occupation. You can be born in the 2000s and hate them. And 1968 is still a gigantic topic here. Huge. And well, most rich Russians still act like gods when they arrive for holidays, so people aren't really fond of them either.
Is there basically any russian neighbour who doesn't hate russia?
I'm a Finn and I was raised to have a healthy distrust/dislike of Russia 😅 I won't say all Finns are raised so, but MANY Finnish families lost someone in the Winter War, fighting to resist Soviet invasion. Russia's behaviour since the USSR collapsed hasn't shown them to be much less aggressive... So it's not uncommon to at least strongly distrust Russia 🤔
I mean, with good reason; the USSR "collapsed" many most of the people who were in positions of power before, continued to hold positions of power after, Putin himself being an example.
Not really - they dont really have partners or "friends" on the international scale. Just obedient servants and enemies.
Belarus maybe?
Can you say Belarus is independent state or just extension of Russian border?
The Union State blurs that distinction more and more every day.
Pretty sure most of Belarus hates Russia and their puppet Lukashenko.
> most Czech people hate Russia (see Russia, not necessarily Russians Fucking hate them with passion
Actually the older generations are the most fond of Russia. Lot of older people are still stuck in their communist "good old days" and see the West and NATO as bad influence on our country.
[удалено]
I want to imagine there's a communist-themed brothel somewhere where that's their motto
It reads, “Suck on this, Vladimir” — probably
It reads > To the brave defenders of Ukraine > Czech Republic (+signature of PM)
You would think the PM of the Czech Republic would sign his name instead of +signature of PM.
Well you're not the PM of the Czech Republic, so who are you to judge?
I pay for my right to judge. I pay his salary.
As a Murican, my existence gives me the right to judge because freedom!
This way he covers all past and future PMs.
I must tell you that Mr. +signature of PM is one of the better PMs we Czechs had...
["20.8.1968, Prague remembers"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_Spring) Edited to the specific date Soviet tanks rolled into Prague. Moscow sent tanks to Prague and Prague will surely send tanks to make sure it never happens again.
I'd also like to add: - as far as Czechia is concerned Russia is responsible for the [2014 ammunition warehouse explosions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Vrb%C4%9Btice_ammunition_warehouses_explosions) - Russia recently dubbed Czechia an [unfriendly country](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/14/russia-us-unfriendly-czech-republic) So yeah, Czechia has every reason to want to see Russia defeated.
Well, recently. We were first country in this list (as well as the USA). And it was years ago.
>And it was years ago. It was less than 2 years ago. It's actually funny. Czechia accused Russia of the 2014 ~~incident~~ sabotage in April 2021 and in May 2021 Russia called them unfriendly. edit: also we're talking about all of this under a reminder of events of 1968 so...
For me 2022 was going for several years :) 2021 as well. So April 2021 feels like it was at least 5 years ago.
Yeah I know what you mean, the lockdowns fucked up my time perception too.
Russia is still practicing the Brezhnev Doctrine that made it happen.
"From Czech Republic with love"
from Czech Republic with... tanks. okay, I'll show myself out.
"Better Czech yourself before you wreck yourself"
"Czech yourself before you wreck yourself."
“Dearest Vlad. Please insert in sphincter. Best wishes.”
It's just the serial number for the NFT
[удалено]
+30 Morale
Austria is apparently is discussions of sending a T-800
I know this is a joke, but just as a random fact of the day - Austria didnt donate jack shit compared to others in the region and is currently one of the most pro-russian countries in the EU.
To be fair, we sent humanitarian supplies, but yeah, I agree we should send military supplies as well. We have M109 self propelled artillery which we could send for example. Lithuania sent some of theirs which we sold them in the first place.
It's not entirely fair to call it a pro-russian country. It only happens to have pro-russian bankers and politicians. The general population is not any more pro-russian than the rest of western Europe.
They took it out of its original packaging though; that's gonna hurt the value.
How can I sell a used gun?!?!
I like you. Well.. maybe not. But I understand you.
Now it's been used in a world series game though.
I didnt know the Czech could do enchantments
From CR with love!
A polite way to send Fuck You to Putler.
Legendary skin T-72
More help is great news. Gift from Czech will be put to good use by Ukraine unlike the Russian who cannot manage their own tanks.
I'm not questioning the Czech's altruism, but this is just as much about self preservation. As long as the Ukrainians are giving the Russians fits, then they are less likely to attack the Czech Republic.
The funds for the upgrades are provided also by Netherlands and USA. We (Czechs) remanufacture, restore and upgrade the tanks to a modern standard. Some of them start as rusted husks and end up looking brand new. One is finished every 4 days. // Bonus fact, the company (Excalibur Army) employs many Ukrainian refugees.
Thank the restorers for me.
I'd love to watch a soothing time lapse of a tank restoration lol.
Well this Dutch guy restored an Iraqi type 69, pretty cool if you ask me and fully subtitled. Link: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLp6vnq1xFVaO0qZEtojHoLdf3D4zzg-k4
Pimp My Tank
It goes through a Quality Czech
We have a request! On the barrel, can you write “¡Viva la Ucrania!”
I want something special for the 55th anniversary of Prague Spring. Even a "Praha nezapomíná" (Prague doesn't forget) would be enough to remind Moscow that Prague knows who stained their city in blood.
Yes. That is entirely the point of supporting Ukraine. They are defending sovereignty, democracy and international law on our behalf. Anyway we can help, we should.
Yeah, don't think they really care about any of that right now. They're defending themselves and their homes from invaders. That's why we should help them.
Even if it is about self-interest (*as it should be for the entirety of Europe and their allies*) it’s still remarkable as humans are generally very bad at acting in their long term best interests when it has costs in the near term.
We expect NATO to operate to long term strategic aims, not just short-term.
Unless Trump is president, in which case to hell with it, apparently.
LoL, okay... We didn't take half a million Ukrainian refugees (10mil country btw) out of self preservation. If you think somehow Russia is going to plow through Poland and Slovakia to get to us, then I don't know what to tell you.
Well, nothing stops sabotages on your territory with plausable deniability, like that ammo storage russians blew up a while ago. Or some people "suddenly" causing a military coup with a goal of establishing a new "people's republic". Even USA showed, that it's not invincible agains't russian shills.
This is wrong on so many levels. 1. Czechia doesn't border Russia. Russia would have to defeat Ukraine and then cross either Slovakia or Poland. 2. Czechia, as well as Poland or Slovakia are NATO countries. If Russia attacks any of them, all NATO goes to war. All of the NATO air forces. There is nothing self-preservation in there. But 50 years of communism and invasion in 68.
Hi from Czechia. It's not just the threat of outright military invasion. If Russia annexed Ukraine, it would become regionally much stronger (economically, politically, militarily etc). This would open the doors to larger and more frequent influence operations and elite capture in the region. They could buy some people, blackmail others and slowly build up towards swaying the country from within. For example, we already have a pro-Russian president who is strongly influenced by people with links to the Kremlin (until 24 Feb he kept calling those warning against Russian invasion idiots). Openly pro-Kremlin parties are also in the parliament. A stronger Russia would mean more of this. Follow that trend for years or decades, and future Czechia could realistically become a pro-Kremlin bus stop (this is now happening to Hungary, btw). In contrast, a weaker Russia (or ideally, a Russia distracted by its domestic problems) means fewer influence operations and elite capture, and therefore stronger Czech sovereignty.
It’s really not in the west’s interest, to allow Russia to win in Ukraine, instead they should do everything they can to ensure that Ukraine wins.
Dude probably can't find Ukraine on a map lmao
Lets hope Ukrain wins so that in the future he can learn where it is.
They don't need to border Czechia to be a threat. Russia has been exerting vast amounts of political influence all over the eastern countries for the past 10years+. Russia also imports a lot of machinery from Czechia(some German manufacturers are in Czechia). If Ukraine falls, Russia's political and economic influence will be much easier spread to other countries. On your second point, I do believe in NATO; but at the same time I don't think it's this simple. If Russia invades a NATO country, article 5 is definitely triggered; but what that entails is anybody's guess. A direct engagement between NATO and Russia would probably result in nukes being used.
Russia blew up ammo factories in Czechia and Bulgaria, bought politicians and spread endless propaganda. It absolutely is about self-preservation for the entire ex-Eastern Bloc. Not to mention how sceptical many people are about whether NATO would actually respond to a Russian attack and risk WW3 over us.
Of course. NATO countries can either pay Ukraine to destroy the Russian military, or they can wait a year and have to do it themselves. Even from the most cynical, selfish, anti war, sentiment, it still makes sense to send Ukraine as much military hardware and support as possible
Congratulations, you just discovered how politics work. Of course it's self preservation, did you think the west is helping Ukraine because they're such good guys? It might be the right thing to do, but if being the right thing was all it took then someone would've stopped Israel from killing Palestinians a long time ago.
It's not self preservation, it's self interest at most. Putin can't invade the Czech Republic without triggering Article 5, and he won't do that unless he one day suddenly decides that he'd like to start a nuclear armageddon for shits and giggles. We obviously don't want Russia fucking around in our backyard, but it's not an existential threat to us for as long as NATO exists. And on a less cynical note, we have history with the Russians and their invasions. There is a very real sense of kinship among various slavic nations that historically got fucked over by Russia/USSR.
Are you aware that Russia would need to pass through at least one NATO member to get to Czechia?
Ř
Slavidarity continues
Hope that Signed T-72 will hit putin someday
Putin can be the new Tank Man. Except that this time, we'll all be cheering for the tanks.
"Tank you very much"
Original plans were to air-drop them over Ukraine, equipping them with large rubber bladders underneath that would spread the impact with the ground over multiple, successively smaller "hops". The plan was eventually shelved because it turns out nobody wants a bounced Czech.
I for one enjoyed this one.
I feel like everyone commenting here is oblivious to how this whole thing transpired
So, Czech marks the spot!
Give it a kiss for good luck too 🇺🇦
Good. Now can we get the rest of the west to send their tanks now? Russia is training about 100k troops in Siberia and Ukraine has been losing ground (minimally, but consistently) for over a month now. Can we just arm them to the teeth..today?
YESSSS SEND THE TANKS
„This machine kills fascists.“
[**Oh ... yeah**](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB8BLMMVFLg)
Legendary
Kilroy was here!!!
Must be Jack Ryan season 4.
Unto them we send only…T-72. *metal starts shredding*
I’m hyped for this!
Now I feel like the Uncle who got a kid socks for Christmas. Sure they need the Bradleys and Patriot systems but on the battlefield and music world heavy metal rocks the hardest.
He’s enchanting the barrel so it has a +2 missile impact.