The speech of the Czech President at the PACE session sharply contradicts the country's foreign policy, he did not have a mandate for these statements from the Czech government, Bohuslav Sobotka, Czech Prime Minister said.

According to Deutsche Welle, in his tweet, the Czech prime minister said that Prague stands for respect for international law. "EU sanctions against Russia are related to the implementation of the Minsk agreements, and these agreements can not be canceled," he stressed. Earlier in the day, the President of the Czech Republic spoke in favor of lifting sanctions against Russia, since they do not act and beat not in Russia, but in the EU.

Zeman acknowledged that the Crimea was annexed, but stated that it was a "completed case", and attempts to return the peninsula could lead to a new war in Europe. At the same time, as the first deputy chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, member of the Ukrainian delegation to the PACE Irina Gerashchenko wrote on her Facebook page, in fact she advised Kiev "to agree on financial or oil and gas compensation with the Russian Federation for the stolen Crimea."

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine called Zemann's statement unacceptable and cynical. "In conditions when thousands of Ukrainians were killed by the Russian occupants, tens of thousands of Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars are being persecuted by the occupation regime, this proposal goes beyond the political framework and is frank cynicism," the ministry said in a statement.