Caputova: Life in Free and Democratic Country Isn't Matter of Course

Bratislava, August 21 (TASR) - Life in a free and democratic country isn"t a matter of course but it"s a rare value for which we had to pay the price of considerable sacrifices, President Zuzana Caputova wrote on Facebook on Wednesday morning after she commemorated the 51st anniversary of the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in Bratislava. On the night of August 20-21, 1968, five Warsaw Pact countries, i.e. the Soviet Union, Poland, Bulgaria, East Germany and Hungary, launched a joint invasion of Czechoslovakia. The occupation cost lives of at least 108 people while hundreds were injured. The invasion was the greatest military action in Europe since the end of the World War II. It successfully stopped the democratisation process in the country known as the Prague Spring. zel