The heated exchange between US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the White House on February 28 triggered a variety of responses around the world.
In the Czech Republic, it unleashed an unprecedented wave of solidarity with Ukraine.
Within the space of just a few days, hundreds of millions of Czech crowns were donated to organizations that support Ukraine. This wave of support is comparable with the one that washed over the country immediately after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine three years ago.
Although relations between the US and Ukraine have calmed somewhat since the Oval Office clash three weeks ago, solidarity with Ukraine remains high in the Czech Republic.
State and citizen support for Ukraine
In terms of the number of Ukrainian refugees it took in (about 400,000), the Czech Republic ranks third in Europe after Germany and Poland.
It is also one of the most active countries in Europe regarding support for Ukraine and its citizens.
But the support doesn’t just come from the state: Czech citizens have donated the equivalent of almost €300 million ($326 million) since the start of the war.
Weapons for Ukraine
Czechs are donating money not only for humanitarian aid, but also specifically for weapons.
In the days and weeks after Russia’s invasion, they donated hundreds of millions of Czech crowns to a special account held by the Ukrainian Embassy in Prague. The money donated was used to buy ammunition and weapons — mainly produced by Czech companies — for the Ukrainian army.
Later, Czech non-profit organizations began collecting money, too.
‘A gift for Putin’
The initiative Darek pro Putina (Gift for Putin) has been particularly successful in this respect. It has so far delivered to the Ukrainian army a total of 1,500 drones, 4,500 rockets and heavy equipment such as rocket launchers, tanks and military helicopters.
The heated exchange in the Oval Office obviously revived people’s willingness to donate.
“The day after the clash, we received 7 million crowns — that’s almost €30,000,” said Jan Polak of Darek pro Putina. “In the following days, we received between ten and twenty times the amount that we had been receiving up to that,” he told DW.
€39 million for weapons and ammunition
Darek pro Putina differs from many other initiatives that support Ukraine in that it uses donated money to buy weapons — and it is absolutely open about this.
“We are entirely unambiguous about this: Buying weapons and ammunition for the Ukrainian armed forces is our priority,” said Polak. “When the fighting stops, we are willing to focus our activities on supporting the reconstruction of Ukraine.”
The man behind Darek pro Putina is entrepreneur Dalibor Dedek. With assets of over €200 million, he is one of the 100 richest people in the Czech Republic.
Dedek owns Jablotron, a manufacturer of security and communications technology, and himself spent €2 million setting up Gift for Putin.
“I am proud that so many people in our country are willing to put their hands in their pockets and donate money to help Ukraine,” Dedek told DW. So far, his organization has raised over a billion crowns (€39 million) for weapons and ammunition for Ukraine.
A tank and a black hawk helicopter
The money was used to buy a T72 tank for about €1.2 million, 15 off-road vehicles fitted with weapons for shooting down Russian drones and an RM-70 multiple rocket launcher.
Now the initiative has collected enough money to buy a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter for the Ukrainian secret service.
The initiative does not buy the weapons itself. It passes the money to the Ukrainian Embassy in Prague so that Ukraine can buy weapons and ammunition.
According to Polak, most of the equipment is made in the Czech Republic.
Drones for Ukraine
Skupina D – Drony Nemesis (Group D – Nemesis Drones) is a similar initiative. It was founded by a group of Czech modelers and war veterans.
Key figures in the association include the well-known Czech actor Ondrej Vetchy, Lieutenant General Karel Rehka, chief of the General Staff of the Czech Armed Forces, and Major General Radek Hasala, head of the Military Office of the Czech president.
Skupina D collects money for technologically advanced drones for the Ukrainian army. So far, it has collected almost €10 million, which corresponds to the price of about 24,000 drones.
According to Martin Kroupa of Skupina D, the donor response to the Trump-Zelenskyy clash in the White House was overwhelming. “We are talking tens of thousands of crowns in a single evening,” he told Czech Radio.
Increased donations for humanitarian aid, too
A similar spike in support for the Ukraine was noted by People in Need, the largest humanitarian organization in the Czech Republic.
In the week after the Oval Office meeting, the organization’s “SOS Ukraine” campaign received 20 million Czech crowns (about €800,000). “That’s 20 times more than in a normal week,” Tomas Vyhnalek, head of donations at People in Need, told Czech Radio.
People in Need provides humanitarian assistance not only in Ukraine but around the world, primarily in Syria and the Democratic Republic of Congo at the present time. It is, therefore, very well placed to see the devastating effects that Donald Trump’s drastic cut in American development aid will have.
“The stopping of most aid measures by the US government threatens the lives of millions of people around the world,” wrote Simon Panek, CEO of People in Need, in a recent letter to donors.
“People die without food aid, the sick don’t get medicine, malnourished children have no hope of recovering. From one day to the next, people who defend human rights and freedoms suddenly lose the support they need,” he wrote.
Change in Czech opinions about support for Ukraine?
The spat in the Oval Office seems to have reawakened Czech interest in Ukraine.
Recent opinion polls indicated that after three years of war, interest was gradually declining. According to a survey conducted by the Public Opinion Research Centre (CVVM) at the end of January, only 43% of Czechs were interested in what was happening in Ukraine — a decrease of 14% on the same time last year.
Indeed, 58% of respondents said that the Czech government of Prime Minister Petr Fiala was helping Ukraine too much.
This apparently changed abruptly after Donald Trump’s treatment of Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, triggering an unusually large wave of donations.
Czechs go to the polls this fall to elect a new government. The Action of Dissatisfied Citizens (ANO) party of Andrej Babis is currently expected to win the election.
Babis has said he intends to cut aid to Ukraine and is demanding an end to the war there, even if the conditions for Kyiv are unfavorable. Given recent events, however, it is impossible to say whether Czech voters would support such a policy.
This article was originally published in German.
