For more than two decades, Soviet troops were stationed on the territory of the former Czechoslovakia. They have been stationed in the country for 23 years since the tragic night of 20-21 August 1968, when the armies of the five Warsaw Pact states crossed the border and began their occupation of Czechoslovakia. The occupation ended on 21 June 1991, the day on which the last Soviet military transport crossed the eastern border of Slovakia.
As a result of the occupation, 108 people died in Czechoslovakia by the end of 1968, 37 of them in Slovakia, while hundreds more were seriously wounded. The occupation halted the process of democratisation of society and began normalisation, which abolished all the achievements of socialism with a human face.
(TASR)
