After Okamura removed one Ukrainian flag from the Czech parliament, five new ones appeared

The leader of the Czech radical nationalists, the new Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tomio Okamura, had the Ukrainian flag removed from the building of the lower house of parliament yesterday in protest, but instead of one flag being removed, five are now flying in protest.

Okamura personally held the ladder when the official removed the Ukrainian flag that has been on the buildings of many Czech institutions since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

On social media, he boasted in a video of himself holding a ladder and how he was fulfilling the wishes of his voters and the ten MPs his Freedom and Direct Democracy party has. The lower house of parliament has a total of 200 seats.

"Okamura has shown that the only thing he can do is trample on values ​​such as solidarity and the courage to support a country that was attacked by Russia. As a sign of protest, we are hanging the Ukrainian flag in a prominent place on the balcony of our parliamentary group," said last night the leader of the opposition movement STAN, the Minister of the Interior of the outgoing government, Vit Rakušan.

As of this morning, opposition MPs have placed five Ukrainian flags instead of the one removed Ukrainian flag from the windows and balconies of their offices, and the flag has not even been removed from the Senate building, where the future ruling coalition of populist ANO billionaire Andrej Babiš and two radical right-wing parties does not have a majority.

Okamura's gesture was widely praised by Russian officials and the media, while the Speaker of the Ukrainian Parliament, Ruslan Stefanchuk, criticized the removal of the flag because, as he said, the flag deserves respect as a symbol of freedom, riddled with bullets and burned by the fire of war.

The Czech national flag was flown in the Ukrainian parliament today in response to Okamura's action.

"Today, the Czech flag is flying in our parliament. As a sign of gratitude to the Czech people for the enormous help and support for Ukraine, which has become a victim of Russian aggression. As a gesture of condolences, as a gesture of solidarity," Stefančuk said.

Okamura continues to reject all criticism today, saying that it is not against Ukraine, but that he has decided, as the Speaker of the Lower House, that only the Czech flag should be on the building and that there is no need for flags of foreign countries in the parliament, because he promised his voters that.

However, in addition to the Czech flag, he also left the European Union flag and the Israeli flag, which was placed there as a sign of solidarity after Hamas' brutal attack on Israel.