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Czech president says he will come for V-Day celebrations in Moscow

"I will go there as a gesture of thanks," he told the Frekvence 1 radio station

Milos Zeman

Milos Zeman

PRAGUE, March 29. /TASS/. Czech President Milos Zeman said on Sunday he will go to Moscow to take part in the celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the victory in WWII to express gratitude for the liberation of his country from Nazism.

"It was impossible" to defeat Hitler without the former Soviet Union, he told the Frekvence 1 radio station.

"I will go there as a gesture of thanks that we don’t have to speak German in this country /the Czech Republic/, that we don’t have to say ‘Heil Hitler,’" he said, adding that the Czechs might have been exterminated "next after the Jews" during the Second World War. "It was impossible to defeat Hitler without the Soviet Union. The price was 20 million /Soviet people/ killed in that war," he said.

The Czech president said German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision not to take part in the V-Day celebrations in Moscow on May 9 but to come to Moscow on the following day instead was a political trick. "I think she plans to go there on the following day to have more time for talks with the Russian president. Neither of us /leaders of the foreign states - TASS/ will have talks with Vladimir Putin on the day of the parade," Zeman noted.

Also, he said he would try to stay aloof from the North Korean leader during official photo sessions. "I will keep my distance from Kim Jon-un, because, as I have already said, I will not hold out my hand to him," he stressed.

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