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History is never far away in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic famous for its hilltop castle and magnificent Baroque heart.

This week’s Czech elections may turn out to be historic for less romantic reasons.

Among the vote’s biggest friction points is the degree to which the government will continue to be a provider of arms and equipment to help Ukraine defend against Russia’s attack.

Echoing US President Donald Trump, election favorite Andrej Babiš, a billionaire populist who previously served a term as Czech premier, has promised voters that it’s time for them to be put first.

Babiš at a campaign rally in Prague on Tuesday. Photographer: Milan Jaros/Bloomberg

For Babiš, that means curtailing military aid to Ukraine, a country that lies less than 500 miles to the east. If not stopping a Czech ammunition initiative for Kyiv, he’s calling for it at least to be redirected under the management of NATO or the European Union.

At rallies around the country of some 11 million, he argues that massive arms outlays have largely enriched one man. While not mentioned by name, that man would be Michal Strnad, now the second-richest Czech.

Babiš’s questioning of aid for Ukraine has lit a fire beneath the campaign of Prime Minister Petr Fiala, who struggled to excite voters with his policies of fiscal prudence.

Fiala has now upped his game, telling Czechs that picking Babiš would put them on the wrong side of history.

Fiala at a Spolu party rally in Prague on Monday. Photographer: Milan Jaros/Bloomberg

Recourse to history may not normally be a vote winner, but it continues to resonate for many Czechs.

After all, momentous events are still being debated and processed, from the policy of appeasement toward Nazi Germany in 1938, through the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia 30 years later, to the “Velvet divorce” of 1993 into separate Czech and Slovak republics.

As results start trickling in tomorrow, it will become clear whether Trump-style allure or the lessons of history prevail. — Andrea Dudik

Global Must Reads

Police in the UK named a Syrian-born British citizen as the man who killed two people at a Manchester synagogue, an attack that prompted Prime Minister Keir Starmer to warn against rising hatred and antisemitism. While investigators said they’re still working to understand the motive, the most serious terrorist incident in Britain in several years will focus attention on the country’s already strained community relations.

Ukraine may be able to acquire longer-range weapons from the US to counter increasingly deadly Russian airstrikes, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told reporters. Russia’s Vladimir Putin threatened an “adequate response” to any decision to supply US Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, while Poland ordered a Russian ship to leave its waters as Prime Minister Donald Tusk warned of an increase in incidents on the Baltic Sea involving Moscow.

Subsea cables carry 99% of all international internet traffic, including military coordination and $10 trillion in daily financial transactions, and protecting them is a formidable task that’s growing more urgent as US-China rivalry heats up. Physical access to cables allows not only for accidents — some 200 a year — but also for espionage, sabotage and disruption, leaving governments around the world scrambling to secure the network.

The top contenders to lead Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party will need to collaborate with opposition parties to help make progress on policy and stabilize the LDP’s shaky grip on power. While all five candidates in tomorrow’s ballot have expressed openness to expanding the ruling coalition if necessary, there’ll be a price to pay as opposition parties have called for a sales-tax cut in some form. 

Suhair Salih left Egypt for Sudan last month, one of nearly 2 million people the United Nations expects to return to Khartoum by the end of 2025 after the army ousted the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in March. The military says it will rebuild the capital, but reconstruction nationwide may cost up to $130 billion and there’s little clarity on where Sudan can find the money.

Damaged buildings in Khartoum on July 30. Photographer: Ebrahim Hamid/AFP/Getty Images

Democrats are standing firm in the face of Trump’s threats to leverage the US government shutdown to fire thousands of federal workers, with the two sides locked in a standoff that raises the prospect of a prolonged disruption in services.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent predicted a “pretty big breakthrough” in the next round of trade talks with China, even as the US takes steps to support American farmers hurt by declining Chinese purchases of soybeans.

French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu is meeting with lawmakers for crunch talks today as he struggles to pass the budget and remain in office.

A senior Hamas official said the Palestinian militant group will respond to Trump’s plan to end the war in Gaza “very soon.”

Don’t miss from Bloomberg Weekend: Shawn Donnan explains how Trump is targeting an economic revival story, and Donato Paolo Mancini reports from Sicily, where locals want nothing to do with government plans for the world’s longest suspension bridge connecting them to the Italian mainland. Subscribe to the Bloomberg Weekend newsletter here.

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Chart of the Day

Some 80% of voters in Switzerland told public broadcaster SRG SSR in a survey that their government is “too friendly” to the US after Trump imposed an outsized 39% tariff on imports from the country. The poll also found that Finance Minister Karin Keller-Sutter, who holds the rotating Swiss presidency to the end of the year, is considered the cabinet’s most powerful person despite criticism for her failure to secure a trade deal from the US president.

And Finally

When storm clouds unleashed a downpour over Dubai on April 16 last year, the city was already drenched from torrents of rain the previous evening. It was soon clear that the United Arab Emirates was experiencing a once-in-a-generation flood as images circulated online of water swamping the desert metropolis famous for its sunny climate and extravagant displays of wealth. This account of what happened in Dubai that day unpacks a story of catastrophe, weird science, competing narratives and unintended consequences.

Photographer: Katarina Premfors

Pop quiz (no cheating!). The former leader of which African nation was sentenced to death in absentia for treason and fined more than $30 billion this week? Send your answers to balancepower@bloomberg.net

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