The Ukrainian nation was sorely tested long before the start of Putin’s “special military operation”. In the 1930s, Stalin let about as many Ukrainians die through an artificially induced famine as did Jews during the Holocaust. World War II followed, during which millions more Ukrainians died fighting the Germans. After Stalin’s death in 1953, Ukrainians could breathe a sigh of relief, but they still lived in the Soviet Union, a corrupt state with a centrally controlled economy that by definition lacked this and that.
Then came the collapse of the Soviet Union. Ukrainians suddenly had a Ukrainian president, a Ukrainian parliament, etc., but corruption was omnipresent.
But there was a significant change in one area: Ukrainians – both men and women – were able to travel to the West for work. Millions of Ukrainians have taken advantage of this opportunity.
However, the villains also took advantage of this opportunity. They seized the visa issuance system at the Czech embassy in Kiev, and poor Ukrainians paid exorbitant sums for the opportunity to obtain a visa. They travelled to the Czech Republic and back to Ukraine mostly by buses, which are cheaper than trains, but at the Czech-Slovak or Slovak-Ukrainian borders, mafiosi robbed them of a significant part of their earnings. It is a shame for our country that it took so long for this system to be broken.
However, as much as working Ukrainians in the West were robbed by everyone, it was still a little better than before.
However, there was a catch. An enormous catch. What will happen to Ukrainian children? Hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of Ukrainian children grew up without fathers and without mothers. They were mostly raised by grandmothers; Those who were a little lucky also had grandfathers. There were fewer of them than grandmothers, which was due to the low life expectancy rate caused by and high level of alcoholism.
In the Czech Republic, Ukrainians soon began to play a similar role to guest workers in Western countries. Today, it is rare to find a Czech cleaner in a hospital or a Czech bricklayer on a construction site. If all Ukrainians left at once, some branches of economy would collapse almost immediately.
Nevertheless, there are quite a few people in our country who claim that Ukrainians are eating us up, that they are burdening our social system. They ignore the presented facts, which prove otherwise.
I’m glad that Ukrainians are here. When I was preparing my last book (published a month ago under the title About the State of Society), I also looked up demographic statistics. Birth rates are declining on all continents – except Africa. The demographic crisis is already inevitable and will hit the Czech nation with full force as soon as women born in the times of the so-called “Husák’s children” stop giving birth. In England, “natives” will be in the minority by 2060, while in London (49%) they are already in the minority – as in many other large cities. But while Ukrainians are compatible with Czechs and want to integrate, there is a threat of not only a cultural war but also a civil war in Britain or France.
I will mention one more factor, seemingly unrelated to Ukraine. It is the awakened anti-Semitism.
If someone had told me, let’s say, in 1970 or 1980 that in a few decades the Czech Republic or Hungary would be the safest countries for Jews, I would have knocked on my head. In many Western European countries, Jews would risk if they would appear in public in a kippah or with a chain with the Star of David around their necks. Jewish parents are afraid that their children will be attacked on the street on their way to school. Many of them will move to Israel or the United States in the coming years; I would like them to find the Czech Republic as their new homeland. They would be a great asset to us.
In a pan-European and global comparison, the Czech Republic is a great place to live. We have a functioning health care system, low crime rates, a functioning, albeit sometimes desperately slow, judiciary, and, above all, freedom of speech. And that’s perhaps the most important thing. In the United Kingdom, thirty people are prosecuted every month for some unauthorized tweets on social networks. While in Russia there are about eight hundred people in prison for these “crimes”, in Britain it is already several thousand. Some cases were scandalous – for example, a comedian was arrested right at the airport when he was returning from the United States. Five armed policemen came for him. After many hours, he was discharged – he had high blood pressure, 210 to 110, and was in danger of having a heart attack. This case has been widely commented on and many journalists have agreed that if comedians are imprisoned in a country, it is already very bad.
However, back to the Ukrainian women. I have personally met some of them. A Ukrainian woman from Carpathian Ruthenia (Transcarpathian Ukraine, if you like) who used to attend our (Christian) home group while I lived in Prague, designed kindergartens or family houses as an architect; but here she worked as a cleaner at the Střešovice Hospital. Another Ukrainian woman worked for my mother. After the Russian attack on Ukraine, I hosted a mother with a teenage boy, so I think I am relatively well informed about life in Ukraine. And I have to say that I appreciate them very much. They are diligent, they don’t complain. Many of them will never be as well off as ninety percent of our citizens.
In our country, in the Christian Community of Jeseník, seven of them regularly participate in the life of our church. All women and girls. My task is to pray for their men and their brothers who are defending their homeland. Pray and support them as much as possible. Maybe one day they will pay us back.
November 13, 2025