Prague (AFP) - The Czech foreign ministry summoned Russia's ambassador Friday amid a row over a controversial Soviet-era statue in Prague that city authorities need to change with an international war II memorial.
Prague authorities put a tarp over the vandalised statue of Soviet ordinary Ivan Konev in August, triggering a pointy response from Moscow.
Russian tradition Minister Vladimir Medinsky referred to as Ondrej Kolar, mayor of Prague's sixth district who accredited the tarp, a "gauleiter", or a regional Nazi birthday party leader throughout World struggle II.
Medinsky also accused Kolar of helping hooligans and tarnishing the reminiscence of Soviet troopers.
On Friday, the Russian foreign ministry said it changed into "appalled with the aid of the cynical determination of the municipal authorities" to move the statue.
The determination will develop into "an irritant in bilateral family members, significantly darken their environment and should n ow not go unanswered," the ministry noted in a press release.
while Konev is viewed as a hero in Russia, many Czechs see him as a logo of Soviet-period oppression.
He led pink military troops that liberated Prague from the Nazis in 1945, but he become additionally in cost of Operation Whirlwind, which overwhelmed the anti-Soviet Hungarian uprising of 1956.
Konev, who died in 1973, additionally performed a role within the 1968 Soviet-led crackdown on the Prague Spring, a democratic circulation in then-Czechoslovakia.
Czech deputy foreign minister Ales Chmelar on Friday "summoned Russian Federation ambassador Alexander Zmeyevsky to protest against untrue and insulting statements of a Russian minister aimed at the Prague (district) six mayor," the overseas ministry mentioned in an announcement.
On August 21, the anniversary of the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia, a person sprayed "No to the blood-covered marshal, we shall now not neglect" on Konev's brass statue that become erected by way of the then communist regime in 1980.
metropolis hall then covered up the statue, however seasoned-Konev protesters tore down the tarp and held a rally in its aid.
It turned into attended by way of a number of lawmakers with Russian sympathies and Jiri Ovcacek, the spokesman for professional-Russian, seasoned-chinese language Czech President Milos Zeman.
Prague authorities decided Thursday to exchange Konev's statue with a memorial of the liberation of the capital all the way through WWII.
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Konev's daughter advised Czech media his statue could be moved to Russia.
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