The Czech Republic will close Russian consulates in the country and stop issuing visas to Russians apart from humanitarian cases, Prime Minister Petr Fiala said on Thursday.
The country will close two Russian consulates in Brno, and Karlovy Vary and also shut its consulates in St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg in Russia, Fiala said.
He said the government would also call home its ambassadors to Russia and Belarus for consultations.
The moves come after Russian forces invaded Ukraine on Thursday in the biggest attack by one state against another in Europe since World War Two.
Moreover, the minister of the interior, Vít Rakušan, said that the country had a plan in place to take in many thousands of refugees from Ukraine.
The Czech president, Miloš Zeman, has called Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a “crime against peace” and that he had been mistaken in recently saying he believed Russia would not carry out an attack, calling the Kremlin’s move “irrational”.
