The book covers an issue of topical importance: how presidents and prime ministers (and governments) manage their relationships to formulate foreign policy, and especially its security aspects, in times of international conflict. The significance of the topic was increased by the Russian attack on Ukraine in February 2022, which provoked a strong international response. This was especially intense in Central European countries such as Poland, Hungary, Czechia, and Slovakia. Their similar experience of occupation by the Soviet Union, during which their national existence was repeatedly threatened and the memory of which, unlike the Nazi occupation of the 1940s, still plays a major political and societal role today, gave them reason to empathise with the people of Ukraine. At the same time, however, a phenomenon of pro-Russian executive actors was visible in part of the region, which is related, among other factors, to Moscow’s efforts in recent decades to influence Central Europe.