Russian foreign minister says Moscow’s official stand on 1968 invasion has not changed

The Russian foreign minister, Sergej Lavrov, has said that the Russian stand on the Soviet-led occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1968 has not changed and is fully in line with the 1993 bilateral treaties that Russia concluded with the Czech and Slovak Republics.

Minister Lavrov gave these assurances to the visiting Slovak Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajčák on Thursday.

The 1993 agreements signed clearly state that the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia and the deployment of Russian troops in the country was in breach of international law.

Minister Lavrov said Moscow had no intention of changing its stand on the events and noted that the draft amendment to the law on veterans presented in the Russian Duma was an isolated initiative by a single MP.

The proposed amendment, which claims that the 1968 invasion was aimed at suppressing an attempted coup in Czechoslovakia, met with a strong negative response from Czech and Slovak leaders.