Does the Czech government plan to create a confederation of the Czech Republic, Poland, and Ukraine to boost the states´ defense strengths and their alliance against Russia? No, that's not true: There are no plans for such a step and no top Czech politician has publicly indicated such an intention, according to publicly available information. Also, the presence of Ukrainian flags on some Czech state buildings does not mean that such plans exist, but it symbolizes solidarity with the attacked nation.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) published on TikTok on July 29, 2024. It contains a screenshot with a question in Czech, translated by Lead Stories staff: "Ukraine, Poland and CR should become one state?" (CR is an abbreviation for the Czech Republic.) The person speaking in the video says in Czech, translated as:
... there have been some news, so there´s talk that there should be some kind of newly established confederation, within the European Union, and that should be Poland, Ukraine and the Czech Republic. When you hear it for the first time, you´ll think my God what a silly idea. And then you look, when you go through Prague - there are no Ukrainian flags on hotels, unless there are Ukrainian tourists there, but the Czech and Ukrainian flags fly on all state buildings... It is clear that the state policy towards Ukraine is absolutely above standard and that this is the first step for some sort of joined confederation.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Fri Aug 2 07:28:28 2024 UTC)
The TikTok video above contains a web address that links to the Svobodny Vysilac website (archived here), which features a weekly commentary by Vladimira Vitova (archived here), the leader of the Alliance of National Forces, a non-parliamentary Czech political party. Svobodny Vysilac has been classified as a "conspiracy website" (archived here) by the Foundation for Independent Journalism which lists such sites here (archived here).
Aliance Narodnich Sil's political platform includes the Czech Republic's withdrawal from the EU and NATO, anti-immigration and anti-globalization measures, with the nationalization of some strategic assets, or the cancellation of the return of property to the Church seized by the communist regime. (archived here).
The Czech Republic has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine against the Russian aggression since the invasion began in 2022. Also, before the Second World War, the western part of Ukraine, the so-called Carpatho-Ukraine (archived here), belonged to Czechoslovakia, as it was then called, becoming part of the Soviet Union in 1945 (archived here).
However, there is no information in public sources that Czech politicians are considering joining a union or forming a confederation with Poland and Ukraine. A Google news search for the Czech phrase "společné soustátí Ukrajiny, Polska a ČR," translated as "common union of Ukraine, Poland and CR" by Lead Stories staff, carried out on August 8, 2024, did not yield any relevant results (archived here). There is no mention of the alleged move on the government (archived here) or presidential websites (archived here). The Ukrainian flags flying on some government or state buildings (archived here), together with the Czech flag, are a sign of solidarity (archived here) with Ukraine in its fight against Russia and have no other meaning, including the claimed creation of a confederation with Ukraine.
The only results found on Czech media news websites about the idea of a common Polish-Ukrainian state, such as here (archived here), refer to a PAP, the Polish state news agency, news report published on April 14, 2022 (archived here), shortly after Ukraine was attacked by Russia, from the European Congress of Local Governments (archived here) held in Poland, where some Polish regional politicians raised the idea of creating such an alliance with Ukraine, which did not materialize.
