Former Ukrainian ambassador in the Czech Republic Jevhen Perebyjnis at Letná in Prague, where Russian military equipment defused by Ukrainians was exhibited, July 10, 2022.
Prague – Chairman of the SPD opposition movement Tomio Okamura used critical words at the address of the former Ukrainian ambassador to the Czech Republic Jevhen Perebyjnis and the entire Ukrainian political representation in the House of Representatives. According to him, Perebyjnis should “stop being rude” and the Ukrainian representation is arrogant and, according to him, interferes in the internal affairs of the Czech Republic. The reason for Okamura's words was Perebyjnis' statement on Twitter on Tuesday, which read: “Acute bouts of Ukrainophobia are usually a symptom of chronic collaboration.” Perebyjnis did not name anyone in his status and did not say more, but his words appeared after Okamura's seven-hour speech in the House of Representatives on Tuesday, in which, among other things, he accused the government of the “Ukrainization of Czech society”.
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“He (Perebyjnis) ran into me when I criticized the Ukrainianization of the Czech Republic. And I stand by this statement,” Okamura said today. “Let them stop messing with our affairs, this person, and focus on their corruption,” he also declared. He recalled Ukraine's problems with corruption and claimed that Perebyjnis defended the banders, i.e. members of Ukrainian nationalist fighters during the Second World War.
Okamura justified this by the fact that in 2018, Perebyjnis sent a letter to Czech Television in which he protested against the broadcast of the Polish film Volhynia by director Wojciech Smarzowski, which depicts the Polish perspective on the genocide in Volhynia, in which tens of thousands of Polish citizens were killed by the Banderas during the Second World War. According to Perebyjnis, some “misleading and untrue shots from the film are considered offensive by many Ukrainians”. Okamura assured that he has nothing against Ukrainians, but he is against those who defend the Banders and their then-leader Stěpan Bandera.
In his speech before the House of Representatives on Tuesday, Okamura reproached the Czech government for helping Ukraine, which is suffering from Russian war aggression. He accused the Czech government of putting Ukraine first. “We've had enough, the people have had enough, your Ukraine all the time. Still only Ukrainians, Ukrainians,” he declared in his seven-hour speech. “Ukraine is a priority for Fial's government, and you have thrown Czech citizens overboard. For us in the SPD, the Czech citizen is a priority,” he said at another point in his speech.
Perebyjnis was the ambassador in Prague from 2017 to last year , when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dismissed him. He now works at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs there.
