Did Czechoslovakia continue to exist, which means the Czech Republic and Slovakia cannot be part of NATO? No, that's not true: Czechoslovakia officially ceased to exist on January 1, 1993, when it divided into the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The Czech Republic has been a NATO member since 1999, Slovakia since 2004.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) by @gunbunja on TikTok on January 27, 2024, with the caption (translated from Czech to English by Lead Stories staff):
Retired colonel: Czechoslovakia never ceased to exist and thus as the Bucharest 9 we are not in NATO! The war in Europe is against Islamic terrorism like in Gaza!
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Mon Feb 5 16:13:58 2024 UTC)
The division (archived here) of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic by its political leaders is still a source of discussion and controversy among those who question the constitutionality of such a decision without holding a referendum. However, the new states were accepted and legitimized by their citizens, successive parliaments ratified the partition treaties, the international community recognized both countries and they became separate members of the United Nations.
The Czech Republic (archived here) went through the Alliance's Partnership for Peace program and joined NATO together with Poland and Hungary on March 12, 1999. Slovakia (archived here) joined NATO on March 29, 2004.
The Bucharest Nine (archived here) (abbreviated as B9) is a regional initiative of NATO members on the alliance's eastern flank consisting of Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic. The participants in this initiative share a willingness to increase defense spending to 2 percent of gross domestic product, as recommended for all NATO member states. All members (archived here) are also part of the European Union and used to be part of the Soviet Union-dominated East Bloc.
In the Czech Republic, the denial of the existence (archived here) of the present state has been a trend since 2022 (archived here). That was when members of a group calling itself the Community of Legitimate Creditors of the Czech Republic, "Společenství legitimních věřitelů České republiky" in Czech (LVČR) insisted the division of Czechoslovakia was illegal and is therefore null and void. According to them, the property of the former common republic was stolen and they are now demanding it back.
As of February 6, 2024, their Facebook page (archived here) had 3.4 thousand likes. There are hundreds (archived here) of active members.
A report from an event when the movement went to an insurance company in Prague's Smichov can be found here (archived here).
