Is history repeating itself? At least that’s what Czechs and Slovaks thought on February 24, 22, when they heard the news that Russians had invaded Ukraine. The memories returned to that day in August 1968. On the night of the 20th to the 21st of the month, the military forces of the Warsaw Pact invaded what was then Czechoslovakia. The cause of the invasion was the so-called Prague Spring, that is, the reform efforts of the communist regime under the leader of Alexander Dubcek to implement a program of liberalization and democratization. The invasion was until then the largest military operation since World War II. That night the people of Prague were awakened by the noise of aircraft landing at Prague Airport and the crawling of tanks.

Similarities and differences with the Soviet invasion

It’s been 55 years since the invasion and yet there are parallels. “It’s almost unbelievable how many similarities there are,” says historian Prokop Tomek of the Institute of Military History (VHU) in Prague. Both in 1968 and 2022, there were military exercises on the country’s borders. As Tomek explains, in both cases the invasion took place at night. “Moscow’s original intention in 1968 was exactly the same as it is in 2022, namely to install a friendly neighboring government that would represent its own interests,” says the historian. At that time the Soviet Union wanted to strengthen its external borders as an empire in Europe, making Czechoslovakia a neutral zone vis-à-vis NATO. Today, Moscow demands to turn Ukraine into a neutral zone and demands that it not join NATO. But while Kiev has been resisting the invasion for a year and a half, the powerful Czechoslovak People’s Army of 200,000 soldiers has not come out of the camps. “Attacks were coming from all directions, from Hungary, the Soviet Union, Poland, East Germany, it created a situation without a solution,” Tomek says.

Furthermore, Czechoslovak military doctrine did not foresee the case of defense against its Warsaw Pact partners. Senior officers were trained in Moscow, and even the reformist leader of the Communist Party, Alexander Dubcek, had even grown up in the Soviet Union. Within a short period of time 500,000 troops from the Soviet Union, Poland, Hungary and Bulgaria occupied the socialist sister country ending the Prague Spring reforms. The East German army did not participate with combat soldiers. However, the number of soldiers was more than double that of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “Today’s militaries are generally not as large as they were during the Cold War,” notes Tomek. “This is due to disarmament efforts in the 1990s, such as the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe.” Russia denounced the so-called CFE Treaty in May 2023.

“Let the support of Ukraine not wane”

The invaders may have had the upper hand, but that did not deter Czechoslovaks from spontaneously taking to the streets and resisting. Not far from the capital’s Wenceslas Square, a crowd of people defended the Radio and Television building from the attackers by throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails. Many of them paid for it with their lives. The machine gun of a Soviet tank burned during the street fighting can be seen today in the Military Museum in Prague. A few steps further on, the blood-stained flag of Czechoslovakia is on display. It is the blood of Antonin Jarousek, then only 22 years old. Soviet soldiers shot him in the head in the early hours of the invasion in front of the Communist Party Central Committee building. He finally succumbed to his serious injuries nine years later. According to recent surveys by the end of 1968, 137 civilians had lost their lives in connection with the invasion. At the end of August 1968, Czechoslovakia was forced to sign an agreement that canceled the reforms. The last Soviet soldiers left Czechoslovakia only in June 1991.

The reforms of the Prague Spring, such as freedom of the press and some economic liberalization, were followed by a “winter” of social stagnation until 1989. Many believe that this tragic experience is the reason for the enormous solidarity that the Czech Republic shows today in Ukraine. Prague is a major arms supplier to Ukraine. From T72 tanks to artillery ammunition, multiple rocket launchers and helicopter gunships. Today, as every year, many commemorations are planned in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. A year ago Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala warned that the will to support Ukraine should not weaken: “Today, Russian tanks are once again crossing a foreign country, this time Ukraine, trying to crush the dreams of a better future”.