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Russia’s imperial ambitions have no limits, unless the world sets them.
This was stated by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic, Jan Lipavský, who was opening the second day of the Globsec Forum in Prague, Ukrinform reports.
“The Russian problem is that it does not exactly know where it begins and where it ends,” – the Czech top diplomat quoted the words of the late president of the Czech Republic, Václav Havel, and added: “Russian imperial ambitions have no limits unless we set them.”
According to Lipavský, it is naive to think that if Russia won in Ukraine, its tanks would stop at its western borders. Ukraine has been bravely resisting Russian aggression on behalf of Europe, therefore Europe and the democratic world must support Kyiv politically and militarily, said Czech Foreign Minister.
“Russia’s victory will mean a fundamentally insecure and volatile Europe. And there is no real prosperity without security. Resisting the Russian imperialism is a call of the day,” said Lipavský, criticizing calls for appeasement towards the aggressor.
According to him, Putin’s ultimate goal is to reconstruct the European security architecture. Russia does this not only by means of conventional weapons, as in Ukraine today, but also actively using hybrid war tools.
The participants of the panel with Lipavský’s participation – diplomats from the Czech Republic, Moldova, Great Britain, NATO – mentioned the wide arsenal of the Kremlin’s hybrid war tools. These are, among others, sabotage, disinformation, cyber attacks, use of energy and migrants, attempts to use chemical and biological weapons, espionage under diplomatic cover. Russia is trying to divide and cause chaos in democratic countries, intoxicating its own population with propaganda.
“There is no magic countermeasure that would solve the whole problem. But we must have the courage to act. The time for talking is over,” Lipavský concluded.
As reported earlier, Globsec Forum is hosted by Prague for the first time, all previous conferences were held in Slovakia. About 2,000 representatives from almost 70 countries, including Ukraine, are taking part in the event.
Read also: “The Death Economy” is driving Russia’s growth, – Le Monde
