Vratislav Mynář
If we were to name the most prominent figure in Miloš Zeman’s entourage, not only during his presidency but also in the period before, we would have to name the figure of Vratislav Mynář. Mynář has quite a lot of business experience, and the culture of his business activities dates back to the wild 1990s. Subsequently, he linked his life story with the people around Zeman and Zeman himself. For a long time, he was regarded as a kind of second-class devil, a figure secondary to the activities of people like Šlouf. He stepped out of their shadow when, a few years before Miloš Zeman’s election as president, he became chairman of the Zeman party. It was the opaque and Russian ruble-smelling transactions under Mynář’s tact that were behind the financing of Zeman’s campaign for the Castle.
But let’s take a look at these entrepreneurial activities in the retro-style of the post-revolutionary times. Most of Mynář’s business projects are connected with the region of the White Carpathians protected area and the town of Osvětimany. Mynář was for some time a representative of this municipality. It was the combination of a public figure, a chancellor of the president, a representative of Osvětimany with business activities, the owner of a guesthouse and a sports complex that gave Mynář many a hot moment watching programmes, especially Reporters CT. There, a series of scams, frauds and subsidy shenanigans were unravelled. In the area of respect for the law in a protected area, we can mention the use of illegally obtained water to make snow on the slopes. The case that led to Mynář’s subsequent prosecution is the situation when European funds were used to build a hostel. This was built and funded with European money by a non-profit organisation represented by Mynář. However, Mynář bought the building with his company and did not bother with any compliance with the subsidy conditions. In reality, he caused a multi-million dollar subsidy scam.
Mynář, however, played a distasteful role not only as a businessman and regional representative of Auschwitz. As Zeman’s man in charge of the presidential office, he became known as the man to implement Zeman’s projects in the field of rapprochement with the Eastern powers.
These things, however, usually interested only those who care about the international political direction of our country, and these people did not vote for Zeman in the vast majority. What really affected all citizens, however, was the slaughter organized by Mynář in Auschwitz. Several people, including the mayor of Auschwitz, gathered in his restaurant at the time of the greatest anti-Jewish restrictions. This was in a situation where the Babiš government was issuing the strictest measures and no more than two people were allowed to meet, etc. The very organisation of the event, coupled with absurd excuses such as a pig starving to death, was perceived by the general public as the arrogance of someone to whom different rules applied than to ordinary people.
The best example of Mynář’s pro-China activities, which certainly returned to him in the form of concrete profits, is a series of events several years ago in connection with the intended trip of the late Senate President Jaroslav Kubera to Taiwan, a territory that China claims as its own. So when Kubera made it known in the fall of 2019 that he was planning a trip to Taiwan, it caused a literal earthquake in Zeman’s clique. Despite President Zeman’s strong warnings that such a move would have serious consequences, Kubera did not neglect to cancel his trip.
The next installment of the series on Kuber’s trip to Taiwan took place at President Zeman’s 2020 New Year’s lunch. There, according to the evidence, he received a letter marked Chinese Embassy. This letter is completely outside of diplomatic style and the normal conventions of standard interstate communication. The Chinese threaten Kuber, without any prevarication, that if he goes to Taiwan, there will be bad consequences for Kuber. Diplomatic correspondence is quite fundamentally between states and can never attack individual representatives of the other partner (state). Moreover, if this personal attack is accompanied by an unprecedented threat, it should be the end of the diplomatic career of the ambassador in question.
Jaroslav Kubera also had a number of mistakes, and if we look back into the past, this book would also have something to say about him. He was, however, a straightforward man and there is no doubt that he experienced many difficult situations during his rich political career, so it is safe to say that he would not be afraid of anything. If, after receiving a threatening letter from the Chinese embassy, he did not sleep well and had indigestion, as his wife and daughter describe, there must have been something more to it than a threatening letter. One can assume that in addition to the spiteful note from the Chinese embassy, it must have been accompanied by another impulse directly from Zeman or one of his understanders, such as Mynár. As we all know, Jaroslav Kubera, according to the Czech constitution man number 2, died a few days after the blackmail document was handed over. It was only in his estate that the paper in question was found. However, another blow came a few weeks later, when Deník N reported that the document, in which Beijing threatened to retaliate for a planned trip to Taiwan, had been requested by the Chinese embassy from the chancellor of the castle, Vratislav Mynář. The independent daily itself relied on several independent sources. The veracity of this information was then indirectly confirmed in the Senate by BIS Director Michal Koudelka. Needless to say, Mynář spoke out in response to these allegations, referred to Kubera as his friend, ruled out the order from the Castle and himself, and described everything as a disinformation plot. However, according to the testimony of people close to Kubera, Kubera himself did not like Mynář, so this fact alone makes Mynář’s position unreliable. In the light of the overall unreliability, the connection to the criminal environment and the published untruths, there is no reason to believe the diatribes and denials of Vratislav Mynář’s order. Evidence, such as the fact that the letter is written on Chinese embassy letterhead and bears the postmark of the castle administration , shows that the version of the Daily N is realistic and that Mynář is a rogue, exhibiting a treasonous connection to an undemocratic power.
Anything can be stolen
The example of one specimen from Zeman’s company of criminal henchmen, Miloš Balák, shows two things. Firstly, it can be shown that even constitutionally prescribed and enshrined tools can be used to the benefit of organized crime, and secondly, that the age-old adage “No one can take such a mine away from you.” In other words, if anyone thinks that there are commodities that cannot be stolen, the Balak case will disprove it: anything can be stolen, even a rock.
For reference, the Lány Forest Administration is a contributory organization of the Office of the President of the Republic. The director Miloš Balák was therefore a subordinate of the President’s Chancellor Vratislav Mynář.
Balák’s contributory organization awarded a contract for field work in the Lánská obora, specifically for the repair of the slopes of the reservoir. The aim of the contract was to prevent soil degradation by draining the slopes, which was expected to prevent the trees around the reservoir from drying out. The project was also intended to prevent the water quality of the reservoir from deteriorating. The reservoir is one of the sources of water for the poorly supplied Kladno region.
Lest the reader think that this was some banal action in which several workers with shovels removed several cubic metres of soil, it is sufficient to mention that the entire remodelling of the terrain was estimated at three quarters of a billion crowns. The whole process was then divided into several stages under the direction of the Balák/Mynář duo. As later wiretaps of the offices showed, the winner of the contract was clear from the very beginning, and that was to be a consortium of companies led by Energie – stavební a báňská (ESB). The entire process of awarding and implementing the contract was coordinated with it, and any competing bids were to be eliminated with the help of bribes. Unfortunately, due to the security of the President’s Chancellor Mynář, the above wiretaps could not concern this scoundrel. For this reason, only Miloš Balák and his crony from the contractor company Libor Tkadlec were accused of scheming in the awarding of the contract. The hand of the law fell on them in 2021, when the court sentenced Balák to three years in prison, a fine of more than a million euros and a ban on activity for several years. Not without interest is the judge’s justification for the fine, which was that since Balak had unusual rewards, he could pay such a large fine. Balak and his cronies were not helped by the appeal against the first instance court decision, as the regional court of appeal dismissed these appeals in March 2022. However, at a time when the prison was already preparing the appropriate size sweatpants for Balak, the president intervened in the entire administration of justice in an unprecedented way and granted Balak a pardon. According to the justification later ventilated in the media, he was satisfied with Balak’s work.
In another case, which concerned a half-million-dollar loss from the sale of stones from a game preserve below cost, Miloš Balák got off with a fine of less than CZK 1 million. It can only be hoped that the damage caused will be consistently recovered. The third prosecution against Balák also concerns a violation of the duty to manage other people’s property. According to the indictment, the organisation represented by Balák took over the use of a tractor from his wife and subsequently had it repaired for CZK 200 000 at state expense.
Martin Nejedlý
Probably the most visible figure of Russian influence at the Castle during Zeman’s mandate was his advisor Martin Nejedlý. The well-established link between Zeman’s levers of power and the business intentions of himself and many of Russia’s most bizarre and criminal figures did not emerge when Zeman arrived in his office at the Castle. Nejedlý lived in Russia for nine years and is considered by many to be a Russian agent. It is not clear what he did in Russia for those nine years. He has never been vetted by the Czech Security Information Service (BIS) or the Supreme Audit Office for his work. On the contrary, it was the BIS that drew attention to Nejedlý’s rampage, directly and indirectly, practically throughout Zeman’s mandate.
Nejedlý worked for Zeman as a volunteer. He himself owned several companies that dealt non-transparently with Russian partners. Among other things, he became famous for wearing a cover with Vladimir Putin’s image on his phone even after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. However, if we were to assume that Zeman, after his repentant conversion following Putin’s aggression in February 2022, would have the ruble-sniffing Nejedlý ceremoniously escorted from the gates of the Castle, we would be wrong: no one touched Nejedlý.
Pro-Kremlin Picek
However, connections with the Kremlin could be found not only with Nejedlý, but also in other positions in the Castle at various levels. Another Zeman adviser – Vlastimil Picek – also had business contacts with powerful Russian figures. His son Ondrej was chairman of the board and commercial director of CGM Czech. The company was controlled by the pair Temur Genadievich Nasriddinov and Valery Pavlovich Chesnokov.
Rather than in Czech business, the name V. P. Chesnokov is known in Russian military circles. A graduate of the Leningrad Military Academy, he was formerly a platoon commander in Kodym, Balta, Sarata and Odessa Oblasts, and during the Cold War he rose in the Red Army structures to deputy chief of the Baikalsk base in Irkutsk Oblast and chief engineer of a battalion. From 1978 he was a professor at the Military-Technical University in the town of Balashikha near Moscow. However, unlike the National Security Bureau, the spokesman for the State Duma did not see a problem in the adviser’s connection with Russian military officials.
Other figurines
As for the well-known influential Russians close to the Kremlin who supported the Czech political representation’s turn to Moscow, we can mention Vladimir Yakunin, the former minister of Russian railways, who had and has direct ties to the Russian special services.
Jakunin’s ministry ordered many supplies from armourers from the Czechoslovak Group and also invited prominent Czech politicians, among them President Klaus and President Zeman, to conferences organized by the Jakunin Institute called the “Research Institute for Dialogue of Civilizations” based in Berlin.
Marie Benesova
As outlined in the introduction to this chapter, after the 2013 presidential and parliamentary elections, two centres of power were established, one at the Castle and the other at the Straka Academy. This does not mean, however, that there was not practically constant interaction between them. It also does not mean that there were not different opinions on many issues, and that clarifying them between Zeman and Babiš did not mean frequent negotiation of mutual concessions. There are not many fine words written about President Zeman in this chapter, but if there is one thing that cannot be denied, it is that he has thought and certainly still thinks several moves ahead. Therefore, whenever Babiš needed a concession from the head of state, Zeman did not hesitate to take advantage of this fact and demand something from Babiš again. For this reason, a number of positions in Babiš’s apparatus were occupied by figures who were not exactly in the same boat as him.
One of the aces up Miloš Zeman’s sleeve was the post of Minister or Minister of Justice. This was not always the case; Robert Pelikan certainly did not make Zeman happy, on the contrary, he had to trample his power interests with Russia really thoroughly. Indeed, when both Russia and the US asked for the detained Yevgeny Nikulin, one would think that Zeman would somehow arrange it for the Kremlin. However, at that time the Babiš government still had people with its own pro-Western thinking, and Robert Pelikan was one of them. He decided in March 2018 that Nikulin belonged in America and a few hours later he was on his way to meet US investigators. The fact is that Pelikan quit shortly thereafter and after various peripheries was replaced by Marie Benešová, a long-time ally of Zeman.
We can only speculate what the pro-Zeman Benešová must have done for her true benefactor. However, the very fact that she controlled the ministry with prosecutors and judges investigating and trying Babiš must have been very unpleasant for Babiš. Another issue with points for Zeman was overseeing some of the core lawmaking; since Benešová took over the Justice Ministry, Zeman had already controlled the drafting of all anti-corruption laws. Let’s recall, for example, laws related to conflict of interest, whistleblower protection or lobbying. In the case of the latter, the expert public must have remembered how the environment of the president’s administration somehow fell out of the regulation of the law during a meeting of the Babiš government. Last but not least, we must remember Zeman’s ability to obtain virtually any information from any criminal proceedings at any time. How? “Marie, please, I would like to know how things are going with the prosecution of Mynář; Marie, when you find out, please see if the Supreme State Prosecutor’s Office in Olomouc is somehow dealing with the dispute with the heating plant, when the oligarch XY tried to take control of it,” someone from Zeman calls Benešová in the evening. And the next day Benešová could personally initiate an inspection of the proceedings in question. And as a bonus, there was no repeat of Zeman’s failure with Nikulin, for which Putin had to bend him over his knee in the Kremlin and plant a few on his bare knees.
Jiří Ovčáček
If we read about the above-mentioned thugs and minions of Miloš Zeman, we must not forget about the castle spokesman Jiří Ovčáček. If we imagine a monarchical court of the Middle Ages, we realise that the main figures included, of course, a warlord, a treasure guardian, people from diplomacy and black work. Of course, the role of a good jester cannot be forgotten either. This designation is not meant to be a swear word in the context. He had an indispensable role to play. And it is the role of Jiří the jester that has remained completely unappreciated since the presidency of Miloš Zeman.
Zeman’s term in office was also characterised by periods of time without contact between the president and the public. Let’s call them the “pajama period.” Zeman was either ill or incapacitated due to alcohol, or he had completely different concerns than the administration of the country. And it was during the period when the curtain was drawn on the president that Jiřík the Jester appeared before the audience. He described in various ways both believable and absurd experiences of how the President was, what he was doing and what he was dealing with. The role of the jester in front of the curtain had one invaluable function for the ruler: Ovčáček’s talk was something completely uncommitted. After his recovery, Zeman could have stepped forward at any time and negated or relativized Ovčáček’s statements. However, at that time he had already had the public reaction to the clown’s presentation of his own thoughts and could therefore have included this in his final decision.
The second interesting characteristic Zeman learned to master in the case of the jester was the ability to divert attention from the main topic. For example, one of Zeman’s villains was caught dealing with a particularly disgusting creature, the president violated the constitution or made some other blunder. If this were to continue for months, it would be dangerous even for Zeman himself. And so Ovcacek came on camera and announced some new hit song. It was then rehearsed in the media, political circles and pubs. Ovčáček may have been a bit more of a fool, but that probably didn’t bother him too much. In fact, his point was made: the mischief or treasonous incident of Zeman’s right-hand man was suddenly forgotten.