The following editorial was written by former Czech president Václav Klaus, and was submitted for publication at the Visegrád Post by the Václav Klaus Institute.
The suffering of hundreds of thousands of civilians as well as that of soldiers (and not only professionals), not to mention the enormous material damage that will affect not only the places where the fighting is taking place, as well as huge consequences of the massive wave of refugees are still incalculable. There is no reason to try to quantify them at the beginning of the whole tragic process. Now, it is necessary to appeal for an immediate ceasefire, for a truce, for a readiness to be able to accept meaningful and seriously proposed compromises.
Such an approach, however, requires something other than emotions, sorrow, sympathy, and cheap gestures, not to mention attempts by politicians to abuse the situation to denounce by their political rivals. It requires a return to a rational way of looking at the causes of today’s situation. That’s the prerequisite for finding solutions that would minimize losses and costs of all kinds.
To find such solutions, exaggerated rhetoric and political slogans are not sufficient. It is not enough to engage in political games that always end up being about domestic politics (and in the Czech case, about the upcoming local, senate and presidential elections).
