back to an earlier part of our conversation, when you were talking about what you see as the dangers of the populist nationalist trend in the czech republic are you saying that mr babis who, of course, was prime minister for a long time and challenged you for the presidency and mr zeman, who was president both of whom in different ways were described as czech populists are you saying that they, in essence, at the very least turned a blind eye to russian covert activity in this country? i wouldn t say both, because andrej babis in his role of prime minister actually took concrete steps to cut russian influence in the czech republic. but milos zeman at that time was, by his views, more on russian side than on the side of our western allies. he ignored a number of warnings.
as a confirmation of the right approach to their foreign and security policies. and as we heard openly from their top representatives, russia wouldn t stop with ukraine. see, there are nearby countries friends of yours, i was going to say, but clearly the word friend is wrong now but former friends of yours in hungary, for example, a member of the visegrad [i group, along with you in the czech republic and slovakia, and poland hungary takes a very different view. viktor 0rban, the prime minister, says that europeans are, in effect, farming the flames of this conflict. they are prolonging this conflict with their anti russia stance. and he says, no way will hungaryjoin the weapons supply to ukraine. and they will, in fact, continue their energy cooperation,
and security policies. and as we heard openly from their top representatives, russia wouldn t stop with ukraine. see, there are nearby countries friends of yours, i was going to say, but clearly the word friend is wrong now but formerfriends of yours in hungary, for example, a member of the visegrad 4 group, along with you in the czech republic and slovakia, and poland hungary takes a very different view. viktor 0rban, the prime minister, says that europeans are, in effect, fanning the flames of this conflict. they are prolonging this conflict with their anti russia stance.
of our conversation, when you were talking about what you see as the dangers of the populist nationalist trend in the czech republic are you saying that mr babis who, of course, was prime ministerfor a long time and challenged you for the presidency and mr zeman, who was president both of whom in different ways were described as czech populists are you saying that they, in essence, at the very least turned a blind eye to russian covert activity in this country? i wouldn t say both, because andrej babis in his role of prime minister actually took concrete steps to cut russian influence in the czech republic. but milos zeman at that time was, by his views, more on russian side than on the side of our western allies. he ignored a number of warnings. he ignored the reports not only
from here, a few weeks ago, there was a rally. thousands not so many thousands but a few thousand people gathered to demand an end to czech support for ukraine. they demanded an early end to the war. some of them wore z symbols, indicating their sympathies for russia. what s your message to them? first, by supporting ukraine, we are helping ourselves, because if we leave it unattended, if we leave it without any support, russia and the rest of the country is supporting, now ukraine would do the same. then russia would most probably prevail in ukraine. russia would take it as a confirmation of the right approach to their foreign and security policies. and as we heard openly from their top representatives, russia wouldn t stop with