Ukraine centre stage as Prague recalls Nazi assassination

British Foreign Minister Liz Truss

What you need to know:

  • British Foreign Minister Liz Truss attended the event in honour of the UK-trained paratroopers who killed Reinhard Heydrich, one of the architects of the Holocaust.

The war in Ukraine loomed large over a ceremony in Prague on Friday to mark 80 years since Czechoslovak paratroopers assassinated a top Nazi official. 

British Foreign Minister Liz Truss attended the event in honour of the UK-trained paratroopers who killed Reinhard Heydrich, one of the architects of the Holocaust.

"The bravery of the men involved and the debt we owe them for fighting for our freedom resonate strongly today," she said.

"We must do everything possible to ensure Ukraine prevails with its sovereignty restored and Russia defeated and contained," she said. 

"The situation today is far remote from that 80 years ago but we should take inspiration from those who gave everything for freedom."

The paratroopers attacked Heydrich in his car with a gun and bomb in Prague on May 27, 1942.

He died of his wounds days later while the paratroopers killed themselves after a gunfight with the Nazis.

In retaliation for Heydrich's death, the Nazis razed the villages of Lidice and Lezaky and detained and killed 15,000 people or placed them in a concentration camp. 

At the ceremony, Slovak Defence Minister Jaroslav Nad described the assassination as a "special military operation set to denazify" Czechoslovakia.

This was a reference to Russian President Vladimir Putin's description of his country's invasion of Ukraine on February 24.

"How can Vladimir Putin say he is implementing a special military operation to denazify Ukraine today when he is just like Adolf Hitler was in the 1930s?" Nad said. 

"Thousands of innocent people in Ukraine are dying now, just like thousands of Czechs died in Lidice, Lezaky and across Bohemia" after the Heydrich killing, he added.

Established in 1918, Czechoslovakia peacefully split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993 following the fall of the communist regime.