Czech daily news roundup: Monday, April 4, 2022

Further assistance can be provided to Ukraine by supplying air defense, anti-missile technology, or tanks, leaders of the Czech, Slovak, and Austrian parliaments were told today on an online call with the chairman of the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada, Ruslan Stefanchuk. Chamber of Deputies speaker Markéta Pekarová Adamová spoke about the call at a press conference after Monday's meeting in Prague. Stefanchuk briefed the parliament members about the latest developments in Ukraine and how the fighting and peace efforts are continuing. The heads of parliaments have also condemned the massacres in Ukrainian cities that have been abandoned by the Russian army. 

Prague will cap fares for passengers using the PID Lítačka application. Transit users will not pay more than CZK 120 for all-day fares, meaning those who buy one-off tickets within the application will no longer pay more than the daily fare per day. Fare capping applies in the capital of Prague, in zones P + 0 + B. In the future, the city is considering capping a year-round fare.

Czech President Miloš Zeman congratulated Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic on his victory in the presidential election on Sunday, also saying in a telegram Monday that he has been a long-time supporter of Serbia’s membership of the European Union in the long term. Zeman said the forthcoming Czech presidency of the Council of the EU will be an excellent opportunity for Serbia to get closer to becoming an EU member.

In the general election that was held at the same time, the Serbian Progressive Party, which Vucic leads, won 43.4 percent of the vote, which means that it will continue to be the dominant power in parliament.

The Czech police organized crime squad (NCOZ) is looking into former finance minister Alena Schillerova's promotional activities on Instagram which raise suspicion of breach of trust, prosecutor Jan Lelek told Czech server Neovlivni.cz. A recent audit of the Finance Ministry revealed that employees who created the social-media content for Schillerova received above-standard pay. "Based on information from open sources, I have assessed the case and forwarded it to the [police] National Centre Against NCOZ," Lelek said who believes a breach of trust may have been committed.

Ivo Lukačovič, owner of Seznam.cz, is donating CZK100 million (over USD 4 million) to buy weapons for Ukraine. The entrepreneur said he made the sizeable donation in response to seeing footage from the Ukrainian city of Bucha near Kyiv, where hundreds of civilians died after the departure of Russian soldiers. Lukačovič announced the donation on Twitter on Monday morning.

"I will probably never get the footage of the Buč massacre again. Therefore, I am sending 100 million CZK of my own as soon as possible to buy weapons for the heroic Ukrainian army," he wrote.

The Anchorage Daily News reports that two men beside a sole survivor who lived through a high-profile March 2021 heli-skiing crash above Knik Glacier, died waiting for a rescue that was delayed by failures in communications and flight tracking. The report cites two federal court filings in Anchorage. The Airbus AS350B3 was carrying two guides and three clients when it crashed 21 miles southeast of Palmer in the Chugach Mountains. The accident claimed the life of Petr Kellner, 56, the richest man in the Czech Republic, and internationally renowned heli-ski guide Gregory Harms, 52.

Czech President Miloš Zeman, Prime Minister Petr Fiala, and other politicians have condemned the murder of Ukrainian civilians by Russian troops. The Foreign Ministry called it a war crime on the part of the Putin regime and demanded punishment of those responsible. President Zeman also condemned the murder of civilians in Ukraine as a war crime and called for punishment by an international tribunal. PM Fiala tweeted: "The photos with murdered civilians from the places liberated by the Ukrainian army are dreadful. The Russian military has committed war crimes in Ukraine." Anatoly Fedoruk, the mayor of Bucha, told the Reuters news agency that over 300 people had been killed in the town.

The Together for Ukraine concert took place on Prague's Letná Plain Sunday afternoon, and was attended by about 5,000 people, a police spokesman told ČTK. Concert goers were urged to bring material aid or financial gifts for Ukrainian refugees. The concert was moderated in Czech and Ukrainian. The memory of Nations, Salvation Army, the Ukrainian embassy, and Caritas Czech Republic all had stands at the event; Memory of Nations sold T-shirts with the inscription Glory to Ukraine in Cyrillic script and the English "Russian warship go f*ck yourself." Proceeds from the sale will be donated to Ukraine which has been besieged by Russian military aggression since February 24.

Police have charged a 19-year-old student who they say fatally attacked a teacher in a vocational school in Prague on Thursday with murder. The student now faces up to 20 years in prison, if found guilty. The Prague 4 District Court has remanded the student in custody as a danger to the public and a flight risk. The teacher succumbed to fatal injuries after being attacked by the youth with a machete in his office at a school building on Prague's Ohradni street. The school principal said that the student was never problematic before and that no safety rules had been breached by the school.

Czechia will see a rainy and windy week ahead. Partial clouds are forecast for Monday and Tuesday while this afternoon, a strong wind warning is in effect for Western Bohemia. Gusts of wind can measure up to 70 kilometers per hour and higher in the mountains. Temps will gradually warm up with mid-week highs of around 16 degrees Celsius, according to the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute.