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A commemorative ceremony was held outside the Czech Radio building on Thursday where a fierce battle for control of the radio took place forty years ago. Fifteen civilians lost their lives in the clash with Soviet troops, who eventually seized the building. Broadcasting continued from a number of secret locations for a few days longer, informing Czechs about what was happening and that the invasion had been condemned by the international community.

August 21st, 2008 marks 40 years since Warsaw pact troops moved into Czechoslovakia, crushing the reform movement known as the Prague Spring. The invasion shocked many Czechs who came to the defence of the Czechoslovak Radio building (now Czech Radio) on Vinohradská Street. Dominik Jun was there in the run up to the commemoration and filed this report.

Exhibitions have been taking place all over Prague recently to commemorate the Warsaw-Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia on August 21, 1968. But perhaps the biggest of all the displays was unveiled on Thursday, exactly 40 years after the Soviet tanks rolled in. ‘… And the tanks arrived’ sees Prague’s National Museum – to this day a symbol of the occupation – returned to the way it looked in 1968. For one month only, a 1960’s-style kiosk, vintage cars, and of course, a Soviet tank stand outside the museum.

Because August 21 is the fortieth anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and the radio played such a central role in the events of those dramatic days, in this edition of From the Archives we shall be hearing the memories of one of the key journalists involved in those dramatic events. Jiří Dienstbier was one of Czechoslovak Radio’s star reporters at the time. Later he was to become one of the best-known dissidents of the ‘70s and ‘80s, and after the Velvet Revolution he was the country’s first post-communist foreign minister.

This August 21st marks 40 years since the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact troops, an invasion meticulously planned by the Soviet Union to crush the period of economic and political reforms known as the Prague Spring. Within hours of late August 20th and early August 21st some 2,000 tanks as well as an estimated 200,000 troops had poured in. It was the beginning of the occupation which changed the course of Czechoslovak history.

Experts predict that repairing the environmental damage caused by Soviet troops on Czechoslovak territory between 1968 and 1991 may take up until 2012. The occupying forces used 73 military areas and 60 of them were left in a very bad state. Since 1991 –when the last Soviet troops were withdrawn from Czech territory – the authorities poured 1.3 billion crowns into clean-up operations. Another 240 million will be required.

The town of Chrudim, in Eastern Bohemia, has placed a tank on its main square as a reminder of the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia 40 years ago. The invasion, intended to crush the reform movement known as the Prague Spring, took place in the early hours of August 21st of 1968. Over 100 people were killed and more than 500 injured in the clash with foreign troops. Numerous commemorative ceremonies, exhibitions and debates are being held across the country to mark the anniversary.

All this week we’re broadcasting memories of those who lived through the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia, which began around 11pm on August 20th 1968. Today we hear from one of our predecessors here at the Radio Prague English Section, Dora Slabá. August 20th 1968 was a normal working day for Dora, who worked as a presenter. When she went home that day she had no way of knowing that she would never come back to Radio Prague. She begins by describing the atmosphere on that perfect summer day in 1968.

A newly released survey from the STEM polling agency suggests that most Czechs have not forgiven Russia for invading their country in August 1968. The invasion by Warsaw Pact forces was undertaken under the mantra of helping a brotherly nation, although the actual aims were to suppress growing democratic tendencies in the former Czechoslovakia. The findings of this latest survey suggest that 64% have not forgiven Russia for their “assistance”. The Czech Republic will mark the formal 40 year anniversary of the invasion on Thursday.

Several of Josef Koudelka’s 1968 photos are being shown at the Mánes gallery, by the River Vltava, in a new exhibition entitled 1945 – Liberation, 1968 – Occupation. Two rooms of iconic black and white photographs show two very different sets of images: the Red Army greeted with smiles and flowers in May 1945, and Russian soldiers berated by angry crowds in August 1968. So how do the people looking at these images feel about today's Russia, especially in the light of the current situation in Georgia?