Did the Czech Republic not participate in a December 2023 meeting of the United Nations Security Council called by Russia because its ambassador was in Prague? No, that's not true: Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky decided the Czech Republic would not take part in the UN meeting because he considered it part of Russian propaganda efforts aimed at spreading lies.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) published on TikTok on January 8, 2024, which uses a screenshot of a post on X (formerly Twitter) by Czech UN Ambassador Jakub Kulhanek from December 27, 2023, saying that he was in Prague at the time, along with a caption translated from Czech into English by Lead Stories staff that reads:
Now maybe we know why Lipavsky had to refuse the participation of the Czech Republic at the United Nations Security Council meeting.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Fri Jan 26 09:13:31 2024 UTC)
The Czech Republic refused to take part in the December 30, 2023, UN Security Council meeting, saying the country would not serve "the lie-poisoned propaganda of the aggressor," according to Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky's comment on the X platform (archived here) on December 30, 2023. Lipavsky added in the post, as translated from Czech to English by Lead Stories staff, that:
When Russia wants to discuss the withdrawal of its occupying troops at the Security Council, we will be happy to come.
On December 31, 2023, the Czech Foreign minister elaborated in an interview with Czech state radio station Radiozurnal (archived here), accusing Russia of calling the meeting to "create a certain fog and support the lies that they are spreading," as translated by Lead Stories staff, and pointing out that at the time of the meeting, Ukraine was suffering "the bloodiest airstrikes in the entire duration of the war," with as many as 160 missiles and drones strikes against Ukraine in one night leaving dozens of civilian casualties. The Czech Republic sent an official letter (archived here) to the Council president explaining its reason for refusing to take part in the Russian-called UN meeting.
Russia called for the meeting of the United Nations Security Council after accusing Ukraine of attacking the Russian city of Belgorod on December 30, 2023, causing civilian casualties (archived here). According to Russia, the attack was carried out with Czech-made Vampire missiles. The Czech Republic, along with other NATO members, provides military equipment to Ukraine to help the country defend itself from attack by Russia.
Jakub Kulhanek, whose X post from December 27, 2023, was used in the video (archived here), serves as the Czech Ambassador to the United Nations.
