Against the backdrop of the ongoing war in Ukraine, the Czech government announced today that it is canceling agreements dating back to Soviet times that allowed Russia to use land and real estate on Czech soil for free.
“The government has canceled communist-era agreements under which the Russian government used dozens of land plots in the Czech Republic for free,” Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky tweeted.
Vláda dnes zrušila treaties of the communist regime, on the basis of which the Russian Federation used dozens of lands in the Czech Republic free of charge. The free use of pozemků Ruskem must be replaced by a use based on nájemních smluv, aby nedochálo k bezdůvodnému obohacení.
— Jan Lipavsky (@JanLipavsky) May 17, 2023
The Czech news agency CTK specified that the decision concerns 59 plots of land and real estate, including buildings near the Russian embassy in Prague, but not the embassy itself. The rest are located in Brno and Karlovy Vary, resort towns popular with Russian investors before the start of the war in Ukraine.
Communist Czechoslovakia entered into these free land transfer agreements with the USSR in the 1970s and 1980s, agreements that were not changed after the collapse of the USSR in 1991 and from which Russia continued to benefit.
Source: APE-MPE, AFP, Reuters.
Source: Kathimerini
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