special edition: disinformation
Czech people are the most Eurosceptic within the Visegrad region, but NATO still has strong support, with the exception of locating NATO facilities on Czech soil. the United States is responsible for the hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees coming to Europe, while over 28% of the Czech public believes that Russian military intervention in Syria helps solve the refugee crisis. Almost 3 out of 10 people also blamed the United States for the Ukrainian crisis, even though it is the Russian military occupying part of the Ukrainian territory. On the other hand, only 1/5 of respondents stated to believe the lie that there are no organized Russian military forces in Ukraine, despite the repetition of these claims by the President Miloš Zeman. Czech people are the most Eurosceptic within the Visegrad region, but NATO still has strong support, with the exception of locating NATO facilities on Czech soil. Slovak think-tank GLOBSEC repeated similar polling in 2017, confirming that Czechs think they should geopolitically stand somewhere between the West and the East and remain as neutral as possible. According to this survey, 30% of Czech also believes that autocracy would be the best political system for our country and 49% of them does not believe the mainstream media. 32
The Warsaw Institute Review
When we speak about the impact of the Kremlin’s hostile influence, it is also important to note that despite the efforts of reporting tubes of the Kremlin in the Czech politics, the general direction of the Czech foreign policy stays unchanged. The Czech Foreign Ministry continuously supports the integrity of Ukraine,22 considers it a priority country for transformation cooperation, and recently also published a statement highlighting the fact that the Czech Republic considers the so-called “people’s republics” in the Eastern part of Ukraine non-legitimate and the Russian military presence in Ukraine to be a gross violation of international law23. What is the Czech Republic doing to counter the influence of the Kremlin?
The Czech government conducted the National Security Audit24 last year, within which it evaluated all the strengths and weaknesses of the Czech defence and security policies, including in the area of resilience against foreign powers’ influence. The Audit included a set of specific recommendations in order to enhance the resilience of the Czech Republic, based on which an action plan was created. Several of these recommendations are already being implemented. Within the National Security Audit framework, the Centre against 22 Česká podpora Ukrajině, Velvyslanectví České republiky v Kyjevě, 2017; http://www.mzv.cz/kiev/ cz/vzajemne_vztahy/ceska_podpora_ukrajine/index. html. 23 Prohlášení MZV k tzv. „lidovým republikám”, Ministerstvo zahraničních věcí České republiky, 18.7.2017; http://www.mzv.cz/jnp/cz/udalosti_a_ media/prohlaseni_a_stanoviska/x2017_07_18_ prohlaseni_mzv_k_tzv_lidovym_republikam.html. 24 National Security Audit, Ministestvo vnitra České republiky, 2016; http://www.mvcr.cz/cthh/clanek/ audit-narodni-bezpecnosti.aspx.