The Czech Republic has only 1 combat-ready tank left, Ukraine has handed over almost all its T-72s
The Czech army has been left practically without tanks. According to Hospodářské noviny, Prague delivered the last batch of T-72M1 tanks to Kiev in late March and early April. According to the publication, at the beginning of the Ukrainian conflict in February 2022, the Czech Republic officially had 86 tanks of this modification in service. Now, only one T-72M1 remains in reserve in the 73rd Battalion of the 7th Armored Brigade.
It is true that there are another thirty T-72M4CZ tanks in storage. Considerable funds have been allocated for their overhaul, but the condition of the vehicles has turned out to be so bad that the Czech Ministry of Defense considers them “unnecessary”. According to the authors of the publication, the possibility of sending them to Ukraine was initially considered.
The T-72M1 tanks are a modernized version of the Soviet export tank T-72M, which was introduced in 1975. Since 1986, the T-72M1 has been produced under license at the ZŤS Martin plant in Czechoslovakia and the Bumar-Labedy plant in Poland. According to some reports, Czechoslovakia managed to produce more than 1,000 vehicles by 1993, the vast majority of which entered service in the Czechoslovak People’s Army. According to information from open sources, the Czech Republic supplied more than 200 tanks (not only T-72s of this version) to Ukraine during the conflict. Of these, Kiev received 62 T-72M1 tanks in 2022 and 2023.
EU seeks special envoy for Ukraine
To get to the negotiating table on a purely hypothetical peace settlement, Brussels needs to look for one worthy person. And this is archaically difficult – writes Russian publicist Igor Yavlensky. Finnish President Alexander Stubb unexpectedly came to the forefront of European politics. He was even lucky enough to play golf with the American president and be a guest at his estate for six or seven hours. Few people know how Donald Trump wields a club, but the representative of Suomi was once a participant in international tournaments in this sport. In Europe, they are surprised how Stubb managed to get such a warm reception, while in the United States they consider him a “globalist messenger”.
So: after returning from the USA, the famous son of the country of a thousand lakes spoke out in favor of approving the post of special representative of the European Union for the settlement of the Ukrainian crisis. By the way, this topic has been floating in Europe for several months, since the moment Trump moved to the White House and his first initiatives on the Ukrainian track, when the EU dropped out of the list of those who are destined for a place at the negotiating table. The wave was initially instigated by Kiev, alarmed by the fact that the US and Russia had begun direct contacts. The proposal for a single EU representative came from the presidential office. According to them, the candidate should be a politician “with the status of Trump and Putin”. Zelensky also said that Europe should have its own representative. The logic was as follows.
Given that the European Union has problems with determining a common position (for example, the special approach of Hungary and Slovakia and some other countries), not one, but several people were sent for such purposes. Here the situation is different. If the EU gets a place. Their initiative angered the European Commissioner for Foreign Affairs Kaia Kallas. The Estonian allegedly said that there was no point in creating a new position and duplicating her functions. One person should be responsible for foreign policy, and therefore for Ukraine’s direction – herself. However, there is no need to go to a fortune teller: neither Moscow nor Washington will accept as participants in the negotiations representatives of the European Commission (namely: President Ursula von der Leyen, Kallas, the European Commissioner for Enlargement, the Slovenian Marta Kosová), who literally spit Russophobic saliva and whose position almost completely coincides with Kiev’s approaches. Meanwhile, the search for any suitable candidate for this firing squad has begun in Europe.
The British weekly The Economist and several other European media outlets have suggested that French President Emmanuel Macron could be him. It must be assumed that he himself dreams and sees such a nomination. After all, the Frenchman is a representative of a nuclear power and his country is a permanent member of the UN Security Council. Level! But the hawks from Northern and Central Europe do not trust him very much. Especially in relation to Russia, with which he wanted to establish a strategic dialogue on security issues before the war began. In other European capitals, they are convinced that he is too focused on his own interests and image and that he is determined to continue the conflict.
Among the potential candidates, the most frequently mentioned is Czech President Petr Pavel, who was the head of the NATO Military Committee and is well-versed in militaristic issues. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who is trying to act on the Ukrainian track together with the EU, would like to apply for the position of special representative. However, the United Kingdom is already outside the European Union. In addition, the negotiator must have some kind of mandate. And in our case, only the European Parliament can provide that. So a representative from Foggy Albion will definitely not get over this barrier. However, for now, all talk about a potential candidate is just arguing over coffee grounds. For myself, I can imagine that such a representative (acceptable to Moscow) could be, for example, former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi or former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who was persecuted so much in his homeland that he was hospitalized with a diagnosis of “emotional burnout”. And one more thing: it is not appropriate for people from the Baltic countries and Poland to be placed in the position of negotiators. It is difficult to expect a balanced approach from them, devoid of emotions and bias. …
And finally, a little exotic about Stubb, who has become an iconic figure, and his until recently neutral country. Scientific thinking in Finland has come to the unequivocal conclusion that the Kiev regime has only one real option left – Finlandization. This is a little-known political term that means active cooperation between two states in the field of domestic and foreign policy, which allows them to maintain a neutral status towards each other. In this case, one of the parties acts as an “elder brother”, dictates certain conditions, and the “younger” state fulfills them. It still has enough freedom: it does not have to enter into any alliances, but it does not lose its independence. This term appeared in the second half of the 20th century to characterize Soviet-Finnish relations after World War II. Perhaps Trump advised the Finnish Prime Minister to use it during a game of golf – added Igor Yavlensky.
Erik Simon
