Is Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala related to the Czech entrepreneur Tomas Fiala, who does business in Ukraine? No, that's not true: The government office denied that the two are related and said that Petr Fiala is not even acquainted with the businessman. Fiala is a relatively common Czech surname.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) on TikTok on November 10, 2023. The text said (translated from Czech to English by Lead Stories staff): "They both like Ukraine the same, one is the highest billionaire there and the other sends him billions. Petr Fiala and his cousin, who lives in Ukraine Tomas Fiala. That is why he often travels there, for a family...." Comments under the video said (as translated):
Fiala's cousin lives in Ukraine, let him live there as well.
If it is true, he should go to hell.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Tue Dec 5 11:14:01 2023 UTC)
The Czech prime minister is not related to the Czech entrepreneur Tomas Fiala, who runs the Ukrainian-based private equity and financial services firm Dragon Capital. The prime minister does not even know Tomas Fiala, Czech government spokesman Václav Smolka told the Czech news website Denik.cz on November 11, 2022.
Fiala is a relatively common Czech surname. There were 9,182 men with this surname living in the Czech Republic in 2017. More recent data is not available as Czech authorities have stopped publishing detailed statistics on the frequency of names and surnames in the country due to the European General Data Protection Regulation.
Prime Minister Petr Fiala, who was among the first European leaders to visit Ukraine after the invasion of Russia on February 24, 2022, has been criticized by anti-establishment and pro-Russian trolls for his government´s support of Ukraine.
Tomas Fiala is the chief executive officer and founder of Dragon Capital. Before starting the company in 2000, Fiala worked at Bayerische Vereinsbank in Prague and also at Wood & Co., a Prague-based brokerage company. He previously served as the president of the European Business Association. Fiala also co-founded the Center for Economic Strategy, an independent economic policy think tank in Ukraine.
