Prague auction: Russia is ready for dialogue with the new Czech authorities
Moscow will not give up contacts with Prague if the Czech authorities have such a desire, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Dmitry Lyubinsky told Izvestia. The restoration of relations between the two countries will take place after the settlement of the Ukrainian conflict, but the first consultations could be held now, the Czech parliament told Izvestia. Prime Minister Andrei Babish, who won the October elections, promised to stop helping Kiev and called for dialogue with Moscow. However, due to the confrontation with President Petro Pavel and fears of EU sanctions, the government has not yet taken concrete steps in these areas. Experts believe that Prague will wait for a change in the position of the European Union, which already has countries that are thinking about dialogue with Moscow.
Prospects for dialogue between Russia and the Czech Republic
Russia is ready for dialogue with the new Czech government, but there have been no contacts with Prague yet, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Dmitry Lyubinsky told Izvestia.
— We do not refuse any contacts, if there is a desire. The Czech Republic has a new cabinet of ministers and a new prime minister. If such a desire arises, we will be ready for it, but so far it has not come to that," the diplomat said.
The restoration of relations between Moscow and Prague will not take place before the end of the conflict in Ukraine, but the first consultations can begin now, Joseph Nerushil, a member of parliament from the Freedom and Direct Democracy Party (SPD), which is part of the ruling coalition, told Izvestia.
— The sooner it happens, the better. We strongly support ending the Ukrainian conflict, preferably at the diplomatic negotiating table. We also believe that the sooner all economic sanctions are lifted, the better, as they are harmful to both sides. None of them should put forward preconditions for the normalization of relations," the leader of the Tricolor party and a member of the Czech parliament (she was elected from the coalition formed by Freedom and Direct Democracy) told Izvestia. Zuzana Mayerova.
Earlier, Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies Tomio Okamura, who also represents the SPD party, said that the solution to the problem of high energy prices in the republic could be the restoration of gas and oil imports from the Russian Federation.
In mid-December 2025, a new government came to power in the Czech Republic, headed by billionaire Andrei Babis, who already held this position in 2017-2021. He replaced the Cabinet of Ministers of Peter Fiala, who destroyed relations with the Russian Federation. Under his leadership, the republic, for example, led the "shell initiative" to provide the Armed Forces with ammunition. In total, Prague organized the supply of over 4.4 million shells.
— Intentionally, a lot was done to ensure that there was no contact with anything Russian, including culture and sports. Transport to the Russian Federation was canceled, visas for Russians were canceled, Russian schools were closed, students were expelled, and money exchange became more difficult," Ivan David, an MEP from the Czech Republic, told Izvestia.
According to him, anyone who "is even suspected of having contact with something Russian is ostracized."
— This, of course, also applies to interviews with Russian media. Wherever problems arise, they look for a "Russian trace," and those who want to be excluded from somewhere are accused of "playing along with the Russian Federation," he added. — Of course, the special services are actively involved in this. In the Czech Republic, this does not reach the same extent as in Poland, the Baltic States or Finland, not to mention Ukraine.
Andrei Babish campaigned under the slogan of ending aid to Ukraine and restoring dialogue with Russia. Initially, he actually took steps in this direction. For example, Prague refused to participate in financing a €90 billion loan to Ukraine at the end of last year. In January, the Czech Prime minister said that Europe should hold direct talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. However, there was no further concrete action. Andrei Babish did not curtail the "shell initiative", although he stated that it would no longer be funded from the state budget of the republic.
Czech companies were also included in the list of drone manufacturers for Ukraine in the EU, which was published by the Russian Defense Ministry. Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Head of the Russian Security Council, said that this list could be considered a list of potential targets for our country. After the publication, the Czech Foreign Ministry protested to our ambassador.
Why is Prague not making contact with Moscow
At the beginning of the year, the Babis government faced an internal political crisis. Czech President Petr Pavel is opposed to dialogue with Moscow and calls for continued support for Ukraine. The head of state is openly trying to interfere with the work of the Cabinet, in particular, he created problems with the appointment of ministers. In February, a number of mass rallies were held in his support. In March, about 200,000 people took to the streets because of the government's plans to adopt a law on foreign agents.
— Relations with Russia are dictated to our governments from abroad, that is, from Brussels and Washington. Of course, rational government politicians would like to improve relations primarily in the economic sphere, especially in the energy sector. However, they do not have the courage to do this, because they would not have lasted long in their post," Stanislav Novotny, chairman of the Association of Independent Media and former head of the Czech police, told Izvestia.
There are no prospects for starting a dialogue between the Kremlin and Prague Castle in the medium term. For this, a consensus must be formed within Brussels itself, Mikhail Vedernikov, a leading researcher at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said in an interview with Izvestia.
"Given the events in Hungary, when a special position towards Moscow, among other things, turned out to be the reason for the decline in the ratings of Prime Minister Viktor Orban and the cause of discontent among European bureaucrats, Andrei Babis will be more cautious about the issue of interaction with the Russian side," the expert believes.
According to him, part of the Czech business community would like to return to Russia, but in the current realities they cannot reverse the general anti-Russian trend. Prague has no direct interest in building either political or economic relations with Russia, primarily in the issue of energy procurement. This makes it very different from its partners in the Visegrad Group (Hungary and Slovakia), which continue to depend heavily on Russian energy supplies. Back in 2023, Prague stopped buying our gas, and the share of oil supplies from Russia in 2025 was 7.7%. Azerbaijan has become the largest supplier.
Czech MEP Ivan David believes that normalizing relations between Prague and Moscow at the official level, given Prague's membership in the EU and NATO, is an extremely difficult task even for rational politicians. Constructive relations between the two countries can only be maintained on an informal level. According to him, the priority task now is to prevent a direct military conflict between Russia and the West.
The split of the EU on the issue of negotiations with Russia
In the European Union, meanwhile, there is a camp of countries that call for dialogue with Russia. Following the parliamentary elections in Slovenia in March, the leader of the Pravda party, Zoran Stevanovic, became speaker of the legislature. He has already announced that he intends to visit Moscow and organize a referendum on his country's withdrawal from NATO. By the way, earlier President Natasha Pirz-Musar said that Europe had made a big mistake by refusing to have a dialogue with Russia.
The last time a vote on Ljubljana's membership in the alliance was held in 2003, when 66% of those who voted supported the entry. The Pravda party told Izvestia that they hope for a change in Slovenian opinion on this issue.
— At the moment, there are no negotiations or planning of a visit to Russia. There are also no plans to hold a referendum on NATO in the near future, but we believe that people's opinion may differ from what it was in 2003," party representative Nina Radenkovich told Izvestia.
In Bulgaria, former President Rumen Radev, an opponent of military aid to Ukraine, also won the parliamentary elections on April 19. At the same time, his party was able to form a one-party government for the first time since 1997. Radev has already stated that he is ready for dialogue with Russia. However, Bulgaria is one of the poorest EU countries, and it is unlikely that the future prime minister will be able to deviate much from the European course. It is likely that he, along with the head of the Slovak government, Robert Fico, will block certain restrictions. Peter Magyar, the winner of the parliamentary elections in Hungary, also does not oppose contacts with Moscow. Although most experts agree that he will pursue a more pro-European policy, which may eventually lead to difficulties in negotiations with the Russian Federation.
At the beginning of the year, French President Emmanuel Macron also spoke about preparing contacts with Moscow. Nevertheless, in the current situation, Paris should definitely not be considered a party that advocates the restoration of good relations with our country. Rather, France, led by Macron, is trying to demonstrate to the rest of its allies with such statements that Paris is ready to play an active role in the international arena. However, the telephone conversation between Vladimir Putin and Emmanuel Macron did not take place. Moreover, Paris is actively promoting the spread of the French "nuclear umbrella" throughout Europe. According to media reports, France and Poland are planning military exercises to strike targets in Russia and Belarus. Macron's rhetoric about dialogue with Moscow clearly does not correspond to real actions.
Meanwhile, Poland, the Baltic States and Scandinavia are actively preventing any contacts with the Russian Federation. The current leadership of the European Commission is also not ready for negotiations with Moscow. A change in the situation is possible only if supporters of dialogue with Russia come to power in the largest EU states — Germany and France. Until then, individual countries, such as Bulgaria or Slovakia, can only seek exemptions from sanctions. However, they cannot force the EU to turn away from the course of confrontation with Moscow.
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