Did an international outcry occur from foreign media questioning a Ukrainian flag at Prague's Faculty of Arts, as seen in images of the mass shooter who killed 14 and injured 25 in December 2023? No, that's not true: Major foreign media reports on the incident do not acknowledge the presence of a Ukrainian flag alongside the Czech flag.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) on TikTok on December 23, 2023. It featured a screenshot from an English-language post on X, formerly Twitter, with an image of the assailant atop the faculty building where the incident occurred, with the Ukrainian flag visible in the background. The post on X has the question: "What's the Ukrainian flag doing there?" Other text in the video (translated from Czech to English by Lead Stories staff) read:
The world wonders what the flag of a foreign country did on the university building in Prague.
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Wed Jan 3 08:44:11 2023 UTC)
No news reports on the incident, extensively covered by major global media outlets, refer to the presence of a Ukrainian flag on the roof of Prague's Faculty of Philosophy, where the mass shooting occurred. A Google search using the phrase "What is the Ukrainian flag doing at the university in Prague" (archived here) yielded no relevant results.
On December 21, 2023, a gunman shot and killed 14 people and injured 25 during a shooting on the grounds of Prague's Charles University. During the incident, the gunman climbed to the roof of the building, using a long-range weapon to target people before ultimately taking his own life as the police approached.
The incident, marking the most devastating mass shooting in Czech Republic history, received extensive coverage from major global media outlets such as CNN (archived here), BBC (archived here) and Al Jazeera (archived here). The Associated Press images in the Al Jazeera article unmistakably show the Ukrainian flag on the building alongside the Czech flag. The article itself has no information or commentary regarding the presence of the flag.
(Source: Al Jazeera screenshot taken on Wed Jan 3 08:50:11 2023 UTC)
The post on X (archived here) featured in the video on TikTok originates from an X account under the name John Edgar Carter (archived here). This account has shared various anti-Ukrainian items, including a depiction of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stylized as the German Fuhrer (archived here).
Numerous Czech official institutions, including universities, museums (archived here) and ministries (archived here) have raised the Ukrainian flag alongside the Czech flag as a symbol of support and solidarity for the war-torn nation. However, displaying the Ukrainian flag within the country has become a frequent target, (archived here) for trolls with anti-government and pro-Russian sentiments.
