New Czech leader says Ukraine deserves to join NATO
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Czech president-elect Petr Pavel has told the BBC Ukraine should be allowed to join Nato “as soon as the war is over”.
Mr Pavel, a retired Nato general, said Ukraine would be “morally and practically ready” to join the Western alliance once the conflict had ended.
In his first broadcast interview with the international media since his election, Gen Pavel gave a robust defence of Western military support to Kyiv, saying there should be “almost no limits” to what countries should send.
Speaking from the renaissance Hrzansky Palace, a few hundred metres from Prague Castle, he said for him sending Western fighter planes such as F-16s was “not taboo”, but he was unsure they could be delivered in a timeframe that could prove useful to Kyiv.
US President Joe Biden has ruled out sending F-16s this week, although France’s Emmanuel Macron has said nothing is excluded.
“I am proud of my country being one of the first to provide Ukraine with significant military help,” he told the BBC.
The Czech Republic was the first Western country to send tanks and infantry fighting vehicles – Soviet-designed T72s and BMP1s – to Kyiv, part of a series of deliveries of heavy weapons that reportedly began as early as March 2022.
“We have no alternative,” he said. “If we leave Ukraine without assistance, they would most probably lose this war. And if they lose – we all lose.”
President-elect Pavel also said that he and other European leaders had a duty to explain to their sceptical – and in many cases frightened populations – of the sense in helping Ukraine.
“Our cities are not being destroyed by Russian artillery and missiles. But our future could be destroyed if we don’t support Ukraine to a successful end to this conflict.”
