ROB CAMERON

A new unit has been set up at the Czech interior ministry to counter the spread of fake news and disinformation. The Centre Against Terrorism and Hybrid Threats will seek to alert people to stories and posts that are demonstrably false, much of it published on either Russian or pro-Russia websites. But not everyone is convinced it can succeed.

Czechs go to the polls this weekend in the first round of a presidential election. The two-day vote is being seen as a referendum on the outspoken 73-year-old incumbent Milos Zeman, and the direction of the country. Zeman has angered many with his tilt towards Moscow and Beijing, and not everyone cares for his sarcastic – and politically incorrect – humour.

Czechs are marking the fiftieth anniversary of the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia, when a 250,000-strong invasion force from five Warsaw Pact countries invaded the country from the north, east and south. They were sent by Moscow to crush the so-called Prague Spring – the liberalising reforms of Czechoslovak communist leader Alexander Dubcek.

Czech counter-intelligence has issued stark warnings of intensified espionage activity by Russia and China. Both countries are pursuing a long-term strategy of undermining the West, according to the Security Information Service (BIS). Moscow has continued its hybrid warfare strategy to gain influence over this EU and Nato member, it says.

The so-called Velvet Revolution precipitated the end of communism in Czechoslovakia. Three locations in Prague symbolise the regime and its downfall. They include a controversial statue to Ivan Stepanovich Konev, the Soviet general whose forces liberated much of the country in 1945, but also oversaw the brutal suppression of the 1956 Hungarian Uprising.

A Czech politician in hiding amid allegations of a Russian assassination plot says he believes the threat against him is credible and he fears for his life. Three Prague politicians are under 24-hour police guard because of the alleged plot to poison them – claims categorically denied by Moscow. The BBC spoke to him from an undisclosed location under police guard.

Slovakia was the second country in the EU to order Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine – but the decision caused political turmoil as the mercurial prime minister Igor Matovič flew to Moscow to make the purchase without informing anyone. Slovakia’s medicines regulator refused to certify the vaccine – which was not approved in the EU – so supplies of Sputnik sat unused on the shelves.

Czech-Russian relations were already chilly before the invasion of Ukraine; today they are icy, verging on frozen. Revelations that Moscow’s notorious GRU spy agency had blown up a Czech arms dump in 2014 led to a spate of tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions. The annual flashpoint is the anniversary of the Soviet liberation of Czechoslovakia – or rather the eastern two-thirds of it.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent millions fleeing across the country’s western borders – including to Slovakia. Some were passing through, on their way to stay with friends and family further west, but many had nowhere to go – and no idea when they would be able to go home. And among the great tide of exhausted and disoriented people were thousands of foreign students.

Russian military equipment captured by the Ukrainian armed forces has gone on display in the Czech capital, Prague. “Russian propaganda likes to scare people that their tanks can reach Prague, Berlin or Paris. Ukrainians demonstrate – only in the form of scrap,” Ukraine’s Minister of Internal Affairs Denys Monastyrsky told the BBC.

Petr Pavel was an unlikely choice for president of a country which has shied away from militarism. But Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has changed everything. Pavel – once head of the Czech armed forces and number two at NATO – defeated former PM Andrej Babiš by a clear margin in January 2023, and gave his first international TV interview to the BBC.

Police in the Czech Republic are seeking information on a stolen racehorse allegedly belonging to Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov. Zazou, a thoroughbred worth some £17,000, disappeared between Friday evening and Saturday morning. The 16-year-old bay was reportedly one of two of Mr Kadyrov’s horses still stabled in the Czech Republic.

A Czech primary school teacher is due to face trial for spreading Russian disinformation about the war in Ukraine to her pupils. Martina Bednarova told children last April there was “no war” in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv. On the contrary, she claimed, Ukrainian soldiers were murdering the Russian-speaking inhabitants of the Donbas.

Robert Fico might have promised to send “not one more round of ammunition” to Ukraine, but he wasn’t speaking for all Slovaks. When the government cut off state-supplied military aid, citizens banded together, raising €1m for artillery shells within 48 hours. They included Otto Simko, a 99-year-old Holocaust survivor and veteran of the Slovak National Uprising.

Robert Fico describes himself as a leftist and a social democrat. But his Smer party is in government with the far-right, and his language is increasingly vitriolic and nationalist. He’s blamed the assassination attempt of May 2024 on the liberal opposition as well as his pro-peace stance, and says Vladimir Putin has been ‘wrongly demonised’ by the west.

Slovakia’s populist prime minister, Robert Fico, has claimed the opposition is planning a “Maidan”-style coup, referring to the popular uprising that toppled Ukraine‘s pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych in 2014. Fico, who survived an assassination attempt last May, quoted from what he said was a classified report ahead of a motion of no-confidence.